Wednesday 22 December 2010

Barton, O'Hara and Sidwell in; Behrami & Parker out.

It makes sense when you think about it. I loathe the idea of Barton in Claret & Blue but at £1.5m up front and future bail payments, he does look a bargain. He will certainly add some bite to the midfield. Sidwell used to score goals from midfield so he would seem a good replacement for Parker, whilst O'Hara is combative and can ping a pass.

Let's assume Behrami goes for £5m, we can have both Sidwell and Barton with £2m left over. O'Hara arrives, maybe on loan, as part of the Parker deal and that is centre midfield sorted. And I don't think we would be any weaker on the pitch and, if we get £6m for Parker, we still have £8m to play with.

There is a little nagging worry though. Barton and O'Hara have both played for relegated teams. (I think Sidwell was at Chelsea the season Reading went down but I'm not sure!).

We still desperately need a left back, another right back, a pacey left winger and a striker, however. And if Upson is sold, an experienced centre back. That means more pack shuffling. Cole has to go. Let's be realistic and say we get £8m for him, that gives the Davids £16m to "invest". You can bet your life that they are scanning the market  looking for "bargain" Mido and Ilan style misfits but, as we have now seen, you rarely pick up players of Premiership quality in this way.

The advantage of Sidwell and Barton is that both have Championship experience and would be very tasty indeed in the lower division. Their goals from midfield would fire us towards promotion and take the pressure off the youngsters.

Of course, all this assumes we have a free run at these players and other clubs might have something to say about that. But then again, who in their right mind would touch Barton with his discipline problems and O'Hara with his recent injury history? Both have "Made for West Ham" stamped all over them!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, Joey Barton is gonna leave the club that stuck by him through two broken metatarsal's and a spell in prison to join a team which is bottom of the league.

He's settled with Newcastle and there's no chance he's gonna leave, especially not to join a club which are odds on to go down, he's already been relegated so I'm sure he doesn't wanna go through that again.

Not to mention the whole country was laughing at him and slagging him off when he was in prison, now when he picks up some form, every fan in the country thinks he's gonna join their team.

Sidwell we will get, but only because he can't get in another team in the league.

O'hara? Doubt it, and he's just recovered from a back operation so he's not gonna be match fit for a while, but may come if it's a swap deal with Parker.

Basically, West Ham would be very lucky to get any of them.

Hammersfan said...

Newcastle have set a price for him.

Comical Ali said...

It also assumes that the stories linking those players to WH have any truth to them which is unlikely.

Sidwell is the only one looking remotely realistic at the moment. The rest are just the usual pre-transfer window media speculation.

In any case, I don't see these players improving our first team. When fit, Collison, Hitz and Noble would all be in the first team ahead of this bunch of misfits.

Elf 72 said...

Sounds like good business to me HF.

Pick up Chimbonda as another RB, Bridge and Santa Cruz or Keane on loan?

By george if that lot comes off we could actually stay up.

Stani Army said...

Is Avram giving someone out in that picture? He'd make a good umpire.

Anonymous said...

who in their right mind would consider west ham a good career move?

Stani Army said...

Avram Grant 16:46!

Anonymous said...

Ah you wag Stani... very funny - god knows why you come here though.

Stani Army said...

God knows everything mate!

Hammersfan said...

God even knows why 1658 comes here! He obviously regards himself as sufficiently gormless and witless to visit the site given his disbelief that anybody of any wit and intelligence would bother!

Stani Army said...

Or he wants you all to himself HF :) Watch out, you have an admirer. I hope to God it's not Iain!