We deserve to drop because we dared to dream. We dared to believe that our bubbles really would fly, that just for once our dreams wouldn't fade and die. What fools!
We are what we are, and all those backing the move to the Olympic Stadium should remember that. Manchester United are Manchester United and Bolton are, with all due respect, Bolton. Know who you are, know what you can achieve, know your limitations, know that there is a class system in football and that you can cock a snook at the aristocrats of the game every now and then but most of the time you must touch your forelock and stand to one side to let them pass, and you will be alright.
But get ideas above your station? Start thinking you can win the Champions League? Look at Leeds!
We can argue the toss about which manager is to blame - and I will continue to do so - but the real trouble started when we angered the footballing gods by trying to destabilise the natural order. Chelsea had the buffer of Abromovitch's billions, but the storm clouds are gathering over Stamford Bridge this season, and one day, the Plastic dream will bubble and burn away. Unreal City are fuelled by oil but the Arabs will bore of the toy sooner or later, close down the pipeline, and then God help them! But Manchester United will always be there. And so will Arsenal. And Liverpool may go through some lean years but will climb again to the summit of the British game. And Tottenham will win cups and finish in the top five, and may even win the odd title.
But West Ham? We are everybody's favourite team because everybody enjoys watching us play beautiful football and lose. We are the cockney wide boys, the lovable Del Trotters, dreaming of being milyonaires one day but secretly terrified by the prospect. We belong in the Prem, but only just. Our natural position is between eighth and seventeenth, and in a good year we might push for a place in the Europa League whilst in a bad one, we will go down. It aint exciting as a "business plan" but we know where we belong in our hearts. That's why we adopted "Bubbles" as our song, glorifying failure and accepting our place amongst the dreaming also rans, amongst the fancy dressed marathon runners limping home hours after the elite athletes.
And for the best part of 100 years that was fine. We have gone down before and come up again. Relegation has hurt but returning to the top division has felt like winning a trophy. Promotion is the iced cake treat that clubs like West Ham enjoy every decade. Without it, we have to live year on year on the crumbs of our Mother's Pride Premiership pre packed, pre processed, pre ordained lunch. To have the highs, you have to have the lows if you are a club like West Ham. Ask the Baggies fans! Ask the Geordies!
However, this time may be different. This time we have angered the footballing gods. This time the very existence of our club is at stake. The debt is huge but not unmanageable, providing we bounce back up again within three years. The danger is that we sell the family home but not the family silver.
We don't need the Olympic Stadium, we didn't even fill medium sized Upton Park yesterday for a crucial game against the billionaires from Manchester. Why move to a 60,000 capacity stadium when your paying fan base tops out at 40,000, especially in a world where Internet streaming will increasingly put downward pressure on gates and gate receipts? If we were Tottenham Hotspurs or Chelsea or Aston Villa or Newcastle, a move to a 60,000 stadium might make sense - although even Arsenal's success on the pitch has been restricted by the move to the Emirates! Look at Coventry, Leicester, Middlesborough and Derby, look what moving to a sparkling new stadium has done for them! Imagine, for a moment, what it would be like playing Scunthorpe in December in the Olympic Stadium, with 28,000 hardy Hammers fans trying to create a sense of atmosphere in a 50% empty soulless bowl. Bubbles would literally echo around the ground!
No, we don't need a new stadium, but we do need a new team. But we don't need to strengthen, we need to accept the inevitable and start cutting our cloth according to our means. Parker aint going to save us from the drop so why pay him £80,000 a week in a lost cause for the rest of the season? Upson isn't going to save us either. Let's save on his £60,000 per week. Cole's £50,000 a week is also a waste of money. And so is Behrami's £45,000 weekly salary. Sadly, we are stuck with Dyer because nobody is going to buy him, and he won't accept a free transfer either. Why would he when he stands to pocket another £2.2m in wages for playing the odd 70 mins every now and then? The same is true of McBenni, but we will be paying him for another two years, albeit a clause was hopefully added to his contract reducing his wages in the event of relegation.
The worst thing Sullivan and Gold could now do is to try to buy their way out of trouble. It will be too late in January. It is too late now. We have the basis of a team to bounce back, without Parker, Upson, Behrami and Cole. We offload Faubert. We let Dyer and Boa go at the end of the season. Noble should be made captain tomorrow. The team should be told of the master plan. We accept relegation and build for the future. We tell Stech, Da Costa, Barrera, Noble, Hines, Obinna, Tomkins, Collison, Reid, Brown, Sears and Stanislas that they are the future of the team. Daprela should have been in that list! We retain Spector, Jacobsen, Hitzlespurger, Piquionne, Kovac, Ilunga and Gabbidon; they will be good enough in the Championship. We source another four or five players to pad out the squad, players hungry to prove themselves who can be held for a year and sold at a profit or at break even when the object of promotion is achieved.
Then we gather together and say a prayer. We apologise to the gods for angering them. We accept who we are and accept our place in the natural order and we ask for forgiveness. The gods are kind, they are even showing mercy to Leeds United. There is a future. It may not be bright, but it is a future.
But if we do not accept the inevitable...well the gods will exact their vengeance!
20 comments:
Nothing is invevitable. We will surely not accept going down (no matter how bad we have been). There are escape routes and we did it before. It can be done. Don't be pathetic. All we need is to string a few wins together and we will be out of it. But first, we need to change the man at the driving wheel. Second, rearrange our players (sell Cole and get some good players in key positions). Third, keep hoping! Tevez may just be available on loan!
what a load of shit, "angered the football gods" typical wet spam fan DELUSIONAL!! you can have the olympic stadium as spurs won't need it due to our new ground being built at white hart lane, if someone would of offered me defeat at home to the spammers but in return they would get relegated i would of snatched there hand off, good luck in the championship back where you belong hahahahahahahahaha COYS
Sav, changing the manager won't change anything now. It will cost £4m to get rid of him, £4m we need to save, not waste. The team is crap. Zola and Nani seemed to think you could play without full backs and wide midfielders. Grant has, at least, identified where we were weak and TRIED to plug the holes. We should never have sold Etherington. That was Zola's decision. We should never have sold Collins. Zola was involved in that decision. We should never have signed McBenni. Zola pressed for his "capture". A right back should have been a priority. Daprela should have been played as our left back through last season.
Obinna wont stay - he will be better in a better team. As for Sears, he isn't worth keeping either - too weak. The fact is, for as long as I can remember, this club has suffred from crap owners. Any 'success' in bringing youth players on has been tempered by immediately flogging them. You know the list. We haven't had a decent manager since Rednapp, and include Pardew among that list of flops too. Got us back up, but couldn't sustain, due to lack of a plan. And there will be no changing the current manager - he's there because he was the only one available who would work for our [half]'owners'. There will be no 'good' player coming - why would they ruin their careers? hasbeens and kids with no experience from now on...
I was as critical of Zola last year as you were. This is not about "bringing back" Zola. It is about an incompetent manager and a defeatist attitude that says we should pack up and accept our fate 6 months before the end of the season!
You should also factor in that it would be a lot harder coming back to the Premier League than it is to get the 20-25 point we need to stay up. If you don't believe that then just look at Sheffield United.
HF,
I think you make a very fair and sober point here. I think I've argued something similar here in the past (but not so eloquently). The alternative to knowing your place is suffering delusions of grandure.
But here's a couple of things I'd add.
First of all I don't think the drop is inevitable. In fact a sensible, modest and long term plan for the club might be the very thing that keeps us up (even if only just).
So do we sack Grant or do we think that given time (even if we go down) that he is a manager who could carry the club forward in the long term? Take the presure off him and let him build a team that's fit for purpose. Whatever, the revolving managerial door has got to stop.
Secondly, knowing our place in the pecking order does not mean that we should lack ambition. I'm sure you appreciate this but I think it's worth emphasising, if only for to head-off the inevitable sniping from the deranged and delusional-brigade who equate a sober assestment of West Ham's chances with outright disloyalty. If West Ham takes a longer term view and sets itself realisable goals there is no reason why it can't punch above its weight ocassionally; enjoy a final or two and snatch a bit of silverware.
Rab, I think I'm making the same point. Everton took stock under their new owners and Moyes. There's been a few times the owners could have hit the panic button and sacked him, but they have realised that Everton are no longer one of the big 5 or 6. They may snatch a sausage roll oor two off the toffs' buffet from time to time, but otherwise, like the Bisto kids, they have to stand beneath the kitchen window of the great and mighty and sniff the aromas of the great spread beyond their reach.
The trouble they, Liverpool, Chelsea, Wigan, Fulham, Birmingham, Blackburn and Villa have is that they have stood still since last seasons whilst other clubs have improved. Tottenham, Man City, Bolton, Stoke, Sunderland and Wolves - although results do not suggest it in the case of McCarthy's men - all have stronger squads than last year. Meanwhile, the three teams who have come up are much stronger than the three who went down.
We have improved as a squad but the injuries have more than off set that sadly. As a say above, Grant has tried to plug the gaps and has done so whilst S&G have reduced the debt, but he inherited an absolute mess. He signed a right back, but you need two to cover for injuries. He signed one wide player but you need three, one for each flank and cover in the event of injuries. He signed a couple of strikers, but without a midfield we can't create the chances.
A midfield of Collison, Noble, Hitzlespurger and Etherington would be better than anything we can currently put on the pitch. Sadly, none of those are available at present. Zola's decision to sell Etherington was a terrible, terrible mistake. The injuries to the other three are cruel blows. Please note, Parker is NOT part of that midfield quartet. I would have sold him in the summer and invested the money elsewhere.
Grant plug the holes? He bought 9 players HF! We are playing worse than ever. Zola was forced to sell because of the clubs financial troubles (mainly due to Curbishley and 'Egbert'). Grant seemingly sold Daprela and Diamanti, two of our most promising players for peanuts.
Why do you continue to give this guy the benefit of the doubt? Everyone can see how inept he is.
it aint curbishlys mess is it stani all he was told is if we stayed up that season he would have 45 mill to spend and im pretty sure he didnt forecast that that iceland was going to go in to a financial meltdown
Well said Stani. I would surely prefer, even Zola, to Grant. I just don't see why HF is backing him so much while he is telling us to accept relegation. Who knows, maybe it is true that he is a secret Spurs fan... A genuine
West Ham fan would not even contemplate relegation before Christmas, no matter waht the circumstances. Moreover, defending the manager with the worst record in the Premier League ever is curious to say the least.
Why the stadium move will finish our club
There is a precedent to what happens when a club moves into a massive stadium with a running track around it and that is Juventus at the Stadio delle Alpi. It was the home of Juventus and Torino until 2006 but the stadium has since been demolished.
It was designed to be used for athletics and football and had a capacity of around 69,000. But because it did not have a warm up track, it was not used for any major athletics events. Just four years into it's opening, Juventus and Torino began planning to build new separate stadiums which the clubs would own because of the reasons which follow:
- There were a number of disputes with the local council regarding the payment of rent for the stadium.
- The stadium was hardly ever filled to full capacity on match days. In the last season, Juventus' average attendance was just 35,000. Juventus are one of the biggest clubs in the world, and this was in the same season they won the league (It was later annulled due to the fixing scandal).
- Poor view for fans due to the athletics track which ran around the outside of the pitch, which left fans a considerable distance away from the action. This stadium openness, along with failure to fill such a large stadium, also contributed to a poor atmosphere in the ground. (continued)
The delle Alpi no longer exists. It has been demolished to be replaced by Juve's new 40,000 seater stadium. This stadium comes without a running track, bringing fans much closer to the action on the pitch and will be ready for the 2011 season. One of Europe's biggest clubs has settled for a 40,00 seater stadium. If it is good enough for them, it will be good enough for us. With a bit of ingenuity, there surely must be ways of getting the Boleyn's current 35,000 capacity to around the 45,000 mark.
It is very dangerous for a premiership club not to own it's own ground in this day and age. Let's not allow G&S to get away with this swindle despite Karren Brady's smooth talking. This is all about them making money. We... our needs, never came into this at all.
Some images of the new stadium: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=440815
Agree with every word Hammersfan. We cannot afford the drop this time as we are way off the pace. We are grateful that they saved us but S & G failed to get their priorities right last summeer. They wasted time with offers fror the likes of Henry & Beckham and failed to focus on the spine of the team early enough i.e. attack and defence. We needed a quality striker, central defender and right-back. we needed to pay the right price not brinkmanship for an impossible deal. When we are relegated we must deal better to have the best chance of bouncing back. We should forget the Olympic Stadium & count our cloth according to our needs.
Grant's the main problem here, so accepting relegation and keeping this clown in charge means that we become a shit side in a shit division.
Time to put some pressure on the dildo boys to make a change or we may follow the same fate as all of those other Premiership drop outs, Forest, Charlton, Norwich, Leeds, weds etc
You keep saying Grant "bought" nine new players Stani but let's look at the facts shall we?
He picked Piquionne up for £1million and Jacobsen for somewhere in the same region. Hitzlespurger came on a free and Barrera on the never never. Obinna hasn't been bought, he is on loan, and we don't know what was paid for Reid but the top estimate was £4million, and that will be in staged payments. Then there is Boffin, an understudy keeper. Ben Haim is on loan too. Who is the last one?
So, he has only bought five players, one of whom is emergency cover because of an injury to our reserve keeper. Of the four who were bought, two are absolute bargain basement signings, and two are speculative punts by G&S hoping to turn a fast buck at some point.
If we apply your reasoning, then Zola "bought" Diamanti, Franco, Da Costa, Daprela, Ilan, Jimenez, Kurucz, McCarthy, Mido and Nouble to suppliment his squad for last season. I make that 10! And what use were that lot? Da Costa was good but he was only a device to offload Savio!
You will say, "But Zola had no say" and I say, more fool Zola! And anyway, how much say has Grant had? Sullivan told us HE was ringing agents into the small hours through the summer checking availability and putting together deals.
The fact is, Grant inherited a hopelessly imbalanced squad. Tell me, why did Zola press for McCarthy and not a right back and left back in the January window? You will say that Mido and Ilan were foisted upon him (and Zola was certainly reluctant to play the most effective of the three - Ilan - for some reason) but how do you know Reid, Barrera, Hitz, Boffin and Obinna were not foisted upon Grant in the same way?
Under Zola, G&S were to blame in your book, but under Grant, it is all the Israeli's fault. And his nationality is an issue with you I am sad to say. You WANT Grant to fail it seems to me, and you are not alone in that, although you find yourself in a very unholy alliance with the BNP element of our fan base on this point.
Very telling indeed.... this time last year you hadn't given up. Speaks volumes about what you REALLY think of Grant. Just a shame you're not big enough or man enough to admit it.
This time last year I hadn't given up because Portsmouth were bankrupt and Hull and Burnley were in the division! I thought we were good enough to finish above those three, and we were - just! But those three have gone now!
You name three teams in the current division that Zola's side would finish above! I would say Blackpool, but they are doing a Reading, and harvesting crucial points that may yet keep them up. Remember, Zola finished behind EVERY other team currently in the division and EVERYBODY accepts that West Brom and Newcastle are stronger than Hull and Burnley. THAT is what is telling!
We are in a stronger division. Grant inherited an absolute mess from Zola. THAT is why we are in so much trouble now.
HF, whether we as fans are resigned to relegation or not, the fact remains that we need to replace Grant immediately. He will certainly not keep us in this division, nor is he in anyway capable of getting us promoted from the Championship. You just need to look at the teams we have lost against this season. How poor were we against Sunderland last week? There is a whole division of Sunderlands down there just waiting for us to drop so they can take points from us next year. With Grant at the helm nothing will change to turn us into a winning side in this league or the fizzy pop. My money would be on him taking us to League 1 rather than taking us back to the Prem if he is given 3 years!
We need to replace him now with the view of building next season. How would you feel about Chris Hughton being given a stint? He certainly wouldnt be any worse than Grant in the PL and managed to win the Championship with Newcastle.
HF you continue to be a massive embarassment to the club.
We are NOT down yet and to give up not even half way through the season is pathetic.
Yes we might get relegated and yes it even looks quite likely, but it is NOT a certainty.
Funnily enough, 1225, others don't think so, they have joined the discussion and their points have been shared.
I hope I am wrong, but if I am proved right, and I expect to be, then I want the wage budget slashed sooner rather than later and I want us to sell before the buying clubs have us over the relegation barrel. The presnt squad hasn't worked for one and half seasons now. The fans love Parker but we finished with a record low number of points llast season and we are looking to get even less this season WITH Parker in the team. Who knows, if we get rid, we might improve! The situation could hardly get any worse than sitting bottom, cut adrift from the clubs above us, could it?
Improve or not, what we must not do is grow the debt whilst dropping out of the division. That is a recipe for extinction or doing a Southampton / Pompey. Do you want to risk that?
Chunky, you must be jooking surely? Newcastle got rid of Hughton for a reason. he was number two at Tottenham for years and years, for a reason. He lacks the profile to take us forward.
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