Da Costa, Reid or Tomkins to Replace Yom Kippur Ben Haim at Stoke? Hobson can choose!

Assuming that Da Costa is fit and that Gabbidon isn't, it looks like a three way fight for the dubious pleasure of replacing Ben Haim for the scrap at Stoke. The Israeli, like his boss and compatriot, has more important concerns than keeping West Ham in the Premiership it seems.

From opinions I have heard expressed, Da Costa would be the fans' choice. He played well towards the end of last season, albeit he was turned inside out by Fuller for that brilliant goal in Stoke's 1-0 victory at Upton Park. Da Costa has a real physical presence and his strength in the air could prove invaluable against the Up and Under merchants at the Britannia. Who can forget that magnificent leap against Villa that wrongly resulted in a penalty. Yes he stood on a Villa player's head on the edge of the box, but the jump was clean and the height achieved nothing short of breathtaking. True he is not the finished article, but he always looks confident to me, as if he rates himself, and arrogance is much better than diffidence in a centre back! The big questions are: 1) Is he fit? And 2) If fit, why has he been ignored so far, even being overlooked by the reserves? Some information on the Official Shite would help!

On the other hand, Reid looked pretty good in the World Cup and, in partnership with Tomkins, kept the shackles on Yakubu and Beckford in the reserve game away to Everton. We shelled out somewhere in the region of £4million for him and presumably, Avram considered him good enough to step into the Prem. The trouble is, people remember how he helped New Zealand achieve a shut out against Italy and see this a glowing reference. The hole in that argument is that Italy were awful in the World Cup, even worse than us, even worse than the Pakistan cricket team at Lords! 'Arry's wife would probably have looked good against them so Reid's performance means little in that context. We shouldn't judge him too harshly based on his debut at Villa because he isn't a right back and so shouldn't have been picked to play there, especially against Milner, Downing, Albrighton, Young and co. However, he struggled after replacing Upson against Bolton and looked very raw to me. He would be high risk if selected. If he is picked, somebody should show him a tape of the All Blacks rucking and say, "If you thought rugby was physical, you wait until Delap hurls a missile into the box and the Stoke boys charge. Put on a hard hat son, you're going to need it!"

Which brings us to Tomkins, the proverbial FEC, Future England Captain. To date, Tomkins' career has been chequered to say the least. To be fair, he was introduced very early and, in typical fashion, the fans went overboard and instantly hailed him as the next great from the Academy production line, even when he was performing modestly. The trouble is, centre backs mature like good wine and Tomkins was a freshly squeezed grape. In truth, he was well and truly roasted on his debut, with Yakubu turning him twice, scoring once and having another legitimate goal ruled out for offside. But at the other end, Tomkins struck the bar with a header and we came away with a 1-1 result, so the fans hailed a new Academy Messiah.

The weight of expectation has looked uncomfortably heavy ever since. Tomkins struggled for a lot of last season, and in that nightmare run of games which saw us lose 6 in a row, was taken apart against Man Utd, Bolton and Wolves. Against Wolves, he had a dreadful first half and that was the last we saw of him for the season. He was supposed to be carrying an injury but many felt, myself included, that he was in rehab, trying to get his head straight after a horrendous sequence of games and nightmarish personal performances. News season, new start, but then along came Villa and we saw a carbon copy of the Wolves games. And Tomkins was again withdrawn early from the fray.

The facts are stark. In 51 games in which Tomkins has feature, we have conceded 75 goals, an average of 1.47 goals per game. We have won just TWELVE of those games, a win ratio with Tomkins in the team of just 23%. That is EVEN WORSE that Zola's win ratio as West Ham manager, and those 12 victories include Cup games against Oxford, Millwall, Harlepool and Barnsley. Take out those games against lower division clubs, and we have only won EIGHT Premiership games with Tomkins in the team. That is a truly shocking record! I know he has his fans but you can't ignore facts like that. And one of those 8 games saw us win at home to Derby, officially the worst club in top division history - and Derby scored!

I was very impressed with Tomkins against Oxford and made him our man of the match, but it was against Oxford. The harsh truth is that Tomkins' level is probably the Championship at the moment. With more experience he may well be an England player of the future but, at the moment, he lacks the experience to make up for his poor concentration and lack of pace. Of the three, he would be my last choice.

Mind you, it is a sobering thought for Da Costa fans that we have only kept 2 clean sheets with him in the team and have conceded 3 goals in no less than 6 of his 13 starts! With Da Costa in the team, we concede at at average rate of 1.93 goals per game! That is desperate! But better than Reid because we are shipping an average of 3 goals per game that he has played in!

So, what this is boiling down to is that the statistics suggest that a choice between Tomkins, Da Costa and Reid is the ultimate Hobson's Choice. The signing of Reid was stupid. In Da Costa and Tomkins we already had two raw centre backs not yet ready for the Prem. To add a third was crazy. That is why Gabbidon and Ben Haim have been preferred so far!

Who ever is picked, it doesn't bode well does it? One glimmer of hope is perhaps that we won at Stoke two seasons ago with Tomkins in the team and actually kept a clean sheet! Can lightning strike twice I wonder?