Welcome to the West Ham Ministry of Silly Relegations!

West Ham are going down. No they are not! Yes they are. No they not! Yes they are. No chance of staying up. Yes there is! No there's not. Excuse me, is this the five minute argument or the full half hour?

So, Monty Python are returning, but who needs a ticket for the 02 when you can watch a bunch of dead parrots, silly walks and the very wettest of wet spam menus at the Boleyn? False number nines, Allardyce total football, pushing on from tenth place last season - the script is more absurd than anything Cleese and co could ever have come up with and the rest of football, outside of White Hart Lane, are falling over themselves laughing!

Of course, the complacency around the place is, as ever, alarming. How the hell the management and board sat on their hands until the transfer window slammed shut before they even thought about recruiting a striker, only the Great God Palin will know! Apparently some time around the end of July, Allardyce was called in to see Sullivan and the conversation went something like this:

Allardyce: Good evening, Your Holiness.
Sullivan: Evening, Allardychio. I want to talk to you about this squad of yours, The Latest Last Supper. I'm not happy about it.
Allardyce:  Oh, dear. It took me all summer to assemble.
Sullivan: Not happy at all.
Allardyce: Is it the goalie you don't like?
Sullivan:  No.
Allardyce: He does add a degree of reassurance, doesn't he? Oh, I know, you don't like the kangaroo.
Sullivan: What kangaroo?
Allardyce: No problem, I'll send him out on loan.
Sullivan:  I never saw a kangaroo.
Allardyce: Uh, he's right at the back in the squad photo. No sweat, I'll make him into a striker. All right?
Sullivan: That's the problem.
Allardyce: What is?
Pope  The strikers.
Allardyce:  Are they too Jewish? I made Maiga the most Jewish.
Sullivan:  No, it's just that there aren't any!
Allardyce: There's Andy Carroll.
Sullivan: That striker is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, It rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed it to the pitch it'd be pushing up the daisies! It's metabolic processes are now history! It's off the twig! It's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off it's mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible! He IS AN EX-STRIKER! The latest Dean Ashton!
Allardyce: I need some money to buy a striker then.
Sullivan: Money? Money? Do you know how difficult things are? Do you know what we had to go through before we were able to buy this club. (enter David Gold and Karren Brady) You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down the mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, our Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
Gold:  Luxury! We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!
Brady:  Well, we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
Sullivan: Right. steels himself I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."
Brady: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.
Sullivan: Nope, nope. And anyway, there's always the Financial Fair Play Inquisition!
Door is thrown open. In jump a clutch of FA officials dressed as cardinals!
FA Official: Nobody expects the Financial Fair Play Inquisition. Our chief weapon is surprise... surprise and fear... fear and surprise... our two weapons are fear and surprise... and ruthless efficiency. Our three weapons are fear and surprise and ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to the balance sheet.... Our four... no... amongst our weapons.... We'll come in again but we are not going anywhere near Loftus Road or White Hart Lane!
Allardyce: No money? Ok I will make do with Maiga. I will cut down the greatest teams in the division with a red herring! If he weighs the same as a duck he's made of wood and therefore he's a striker!
Sullivan: But he's crap!
Allardyce: Well that's cast rather a gloom over the season hasn't it? Look what have the strikers ever done for us? They've bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we had, and not just from us, from our fathers, and from our fathers' fathers. And what have they ever given us in return?!
Sullivan: Goals?
Allardyce: What?
Sullivan: Goals?
Allardyce: Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that's true. Yeah.
Sullivan: And victories?
Allardyce: Yeah. All right. I'll grant you the goals and the victories are two things that the Strikers have given us.
Sullivan: And the entertainment.
Allardyce: Well, yeah. Obviously the entertainment. I mean, the entertainment goes without saying, doesn't it? But apart from the goals, the victories, and the entertainment--
Gold: Premiership survival.
Brady: I married one.
Sullivan: An out ball.
Gold: A World Cup in 66.
Sullivan: An FA Cup in 75.
Gold: An FA Cup in 64.
Sullivan: A Cup Winners Cup in 65.
Allardyce: Well I'll give you goals, the entertainment, the victories, Premiership survival, marriage material, the out ball, a World Cup, the FA Cups and the Cup Winners Cup, but apart from that, what have the strikers ever done for us?
Enter a fan who points at Allardyce
Fan: Why are you manager? I didn't vote for you!
Allardyce: You don't vote for managers.
 Fan: Well how do you become manager then?
Allardyce: The Brady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Allardychio, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am your manager!
Sullivan: Look this is getting us nowhere!
Allardyce:  All right ... I confess I haven't bought any strikers ... I hate West Ham.  I have this terrible un-un-uncontrollable fear whenever I see the words The Academy of Football. When I was a kid I used to hate the sight of West Ham playing free flowing football. My mother said I was a fool. She said the only way to cure it was to become a West Ham manager. So I spent five ghastly years at the FA coaching academy. Can you imagine what it's like studying how to pass the ball on the ground for five years? I didn't want to be a West Ham manager anyway. I wanted to be a Real Madrid manager. Thumping the ball long for Ronaldo to chase after it...

 And now for something completely undifferent! Yet another season of heartbreak!

West Ham help Gillingham to tune up for victory at Sheffield United

As warm up games go, the 9-0 hammering by a West Ham Eleven in mid week wouldn't normally be what the doctor orders ahead of a key relegation 6 pointer. But the hapless Gills were still able to dust themselves down, travel North and spank hapless, helpless, hopeless and piss pot less Shafting United at the weekend.

And as a result, the Blunted Blades are right back where they belong - in the bottom 4 of the old Third Division - second from bottom to be precise, just 2 points ahead of Notts County who hold up the entire shit pile.

The damage was done this time by Carlos Tevez-Kedwell and Carlos Tevez-McDonald, both of whom deserve a "Well Done" card from West Ham fans.

It's beginning to look as if even a Clough can't save them! But even a Clough can't overcome a curse! Give back the money or the nightmare will never end!

Mystery Trialist Scores in Nine Goal Thumping of Gillingham

So, who is he? Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple and Jack Frost are on the case as we speak, trying to track down the mystery man who replaced Carlton Cole on 60 minutes in the nine goal stroll, the mystery man who is repeatedly called "Trialist" on the Official Site!

We shouldn't get too excited, of course - even Carlton and Maiga scored, which tells you everything you need to know about Gillingham - but, let's face it, we will take anybody with a goal in him at the moment.

Quite why the Official Site declines to name him is anybody's guess. Maybe he is an illegal immigrant, or possibly he is on the run from the CIA. Bloody hell, where is Wikileaks when you really need it?

Or maybe the guy is simply called Trialist!

Who cares. He scored! Sign him! Start him against Chelsea! Who needs Carroll when you have A Trialist?

Too good to go down?

The phrase has an uncomfortable resonance. Kanoute, Cole, Di Canio, Defoe, Johnson, Sinclair, Les Ferdinand - how could a team blessed with such talent possibly drop out of the top division? Well Allardyce knows, because Allardyce's Bolton condemned us to relegation; and Sullivan and Gold know, because Sullivan and Gold's Birmingham drove the final nail into our relegation coffin in the last game of that miserable, miserable season, a game we had to win but drew 2-2.

The trouble that year was an imbalanced squad. Yes the team was blessed with genius, but at the heart of the defence there was a void, and for all the talent in the team, there was a shortage of steel outside of Repka and Lomas. The team was almost all silk with very little backbone.

Well here we go again. Joe Cole is common to both teams, of course, and it would be a sad postscript on his unfulfilled career if it were to be sandwiched by two relegations with the club he claims to love. And outside of Cole, there is Morrison, Rat, Reid, Downing, Noble and Carroll - all far too good to be relegated! But are they?

Downing has been relegated before. So has Joe Cole. And Winston Reid. And Mark Noble. And Andy Carroll. And, of course, Tomkins, Jussi, O'Brien, Jarvis, Collison, Jussi, Taylor, Vaz Te, Carlton Cole and Kevin Nolan. Too good to be relegated? This team is cut from relegation cloth!

Yesterday's game was terrifying. For 45 minutes we bossed the match in a way I cannot remember us bossing a game. I posted at half time that it was like an exhibition game. We were the Harlem Globe Trotters and Norwich were a bunch of stiffs sharing the arena just to make us look good. At half time it could have been 4-0 and should have been 2-0 at the very least. Our control and domination were total.

So what the hell happened? Well first of all, this team can't score goals. You know it, I know it, Allardyce refuses to admit it, and ultimately Chris Hughton knew it. His instruction at half time was straightforward - get higher up the pitch, press the man on the ball, don't worry about gaps at the back, we can give them four chances and they won't take more than one.

I knew what was coming. At half time I wrote, "To be honest, the biggest worry is that Norwich will press us higher in the second half and one of Tomkins, Collins, Noble, Collison, Morrison or Demel will be caught in possession. Delia's darlings might as well be hung for a mutton stew as for a lamb casserole after all, so worrying about gaps at the back may now be off the agenda." OK, I didn't identify the right culprit, but based on his performances so far this season, who would have expected Jussi to hand the equalizing goal on a plate to Norwich?

That Jussi mistake was as bad as anything Green ever did and he compounded it with the unnecessary challenge which invited the award of the penalty. But why the hell did that goal make such a difference? It should have been a blip. Normal service should have been restored immediately. Like the Harlem Globe Trotters, we should have just stepped up a gear, re-established a lead and then cruised through to victory. But suddenly everything fell apart. Suddenly nobody was able to find space. Suddenly Norwich were dominating possession. Suddenly we were a complete shambles.

Then came that free kick. What the hell was Jussi up to? He left so much of the goal unguarded that I could have stepped up and scored. Bloody hell, my 82 year old mother might have fancied her chances! If the guy can't defend free kicks - and the evidence is clear that he can't - then we have to stand a defender on a post to help him.

What followed was humiliating. Carlton Cole is a shot bolt. Bringing him on is ludicrous. Taking off Joe Cole was madness, meanwhile. He has a goal in him, unlike Carlton and Diame and Jarvis. As soon as Joe departed, all hope of victory evaporated. Fine, bring on Mo, but don't take off Joe - Jack Collison was the obvious choice.

And then removing Noble? Crazy. Look how exposed Tomkins was for the third goal! And who was knitting our game together in the last five minutes?

Yesterday's result should be a wake up call to all those who believe that the possibility of relegation is unthinkable. Without Reid, our defence is little better than the defence of 2002-03 - and Reid is out for a stretch; and without Carroll we don't have an attack, never mind an attack to compare with Defoe, Kanoute and Di Canio!

But let's not worry. We have Joe Cole. And Defoe may return in January. And if some idiots have their way, Di Canio could replace Allardyce!

Who finished bottom in 2002-03? Sunderland.

This is getting spooky!

Player Ratings First Half: Jussi 6; Demel 8, Tomkins 7, Collins 6, Rat 9; Noble 8, Morrison 8, Nolan 7, Collison 7, Downing 7, Cole 7

Player Ratings Second Half: Jussi 0; Demel 6, Tomkins 4, Collins 5, Rat 6; Noble 6, Morrison 6, Nolan 4, Collison 5, Downing 3, Joe Cole 4; Subs: Diame 4, Carlton 0, Jarvis 1.

Half Time Norwich 0 West Ham 1 - Exhibition football so far!

Well, for much of that first 45 minutes I thought I was watching a training game - or at most a pre season friendly. Our passing has been unnervingly precise, the movement has been wonderful, and with better luck and better finishing, we could be three goals ahead. Nolan has forced two saves from Ruddy, and really should have buried one of them, and Demel has hit the bar with a header from a corner. Meanwhile, Norwich have been chasing shadows and, when they have got the ball, have looked clueless. Hang on, this can't last, can it?

The goal was superb. Noble played a lovely pass inside the full back, Rat sent over a delicious cross, low and hard to the near post, Nolan tried to flick it home but when his effort was blocked, had the composure to retrieve the ball on the by-line, look up and pick out Morrison, who slid it into the gaping net.

To be honest, the biggest worry is that Norwich will press us higher in the second half and one of Tomkins, Collins, Noble, Collison, Morrison or Demel will be caught in possession. Dehlia's darlings might as well be hung for a mutton stew as for a lamb casserole after all, so worrying about gaps at the back may now be off the agenda.

Of course, this is all utterly surreal. An Allardyce team passing the opposition to death! Who would believe it? Fingers crossed the Canaries don't burst our bubbles second half!

Reid as big a loss as Carroll!

Norwich City's luck has turned just days after the drubbing at the Etihad. Already without an attack because of the absence of Andy Carroll, West Ham must now take to the field at Carrow Road without the man who knits the entire defence together, Winston Reid.

Suddenly, the game looks like a bloody minefield. We should be rubbing our hands together at the prospect of playing a team beneath us in the table., especially after they have just shipped seven goals, but because we are so dependent on Carroll and Reid, it feels like we will be playing with less than half a team!

Take out Noble and Jussi and the side would be completely without a spine. It could be a long 90 minutes!

Judas Loved Jesus Shocker as Defoe seeks Spurs exit!

Life is full of regrets isn't it? Judas, of course, hanged himself after betraying the Messiah, and, whilst sopping short of that, Germstain Defoe is apparently keen to put his head in the Upton Park noose after expressing regret about his infamous transfer request and expressing his love for West Ham.

And why exactly? Because in a World Cup year, he is desperate to find himself a berth at a club where he will see first team football. Yes he loves West Ham, in exactly the same way as all mercenaries love the nation that pays their wages!

Do we want him back? Personally, I can't see the point because Allardyce won't use him. 4-6-0 will revert to 4-5-1 at some point, and Defoe is not tall enough to get on the end of 38 crosses into the box is he?

What did Jesus say as the noose tightened around Judas's neck? "Father, let him rot in hell!" And Defoe should be left to rot in Tottenham's reserves.

Elliot Lee gives Allardyce a nudge as Sheffield United slip back into bottom four!

Ok, it was only Rotherham, but nevertheless, young Lee netted a crucial equalising goal in the last minute of the Divison 1 clash. And even more pertinent, given we are talking Allardyce, he scored with his head! So Sam, 38 crosses failed to find a West Ham nut against Villa, whilst Elliot Lee got his nodder on the end of one delivered by a Colchester team mate. Worth a chance perhaps? The kids did well at Burnley!

Meanwhile Shafting United's revival proved deliciously short lived. A 2-0 defeat at lowly Shrewsbury put them back exactly where they deserve to be, in the bottom four! The Tevez curse continues. Pay back the money McScab and Sheik Dusty Bin and the nightmare will end!

Allardyce Looking Down Wrong End of Telescope!

Apparently Allardyce thinks we were unlucky not to beat Villa. Well on that basis, he was watching a different game from me! How many genuine saves did Guzan have to make? Two, if we count the Jarvis scuff and Joe Cole's effort from a near impossible angle. And Villa? Well Jussi made two brilliant saves (from Wiemann in the first half and Benteke in the second) and the Villain's Belgian also hit the underside of the bar from a position you would even back Carlton Cole to score from. We were not unlucky not to win, we were bloody lucky to draw!

Allardyce again quotes stats and suggests that sooner or later it will come right, but if you don't have goal scorers in the team, how are you going to score goals, exactly? I have given the alarming goal scoring stats for this team before - these players aren't just goal shy, they are goal comatose! Did anybody think Jarvis would score when Nolan played him through? Did anybody expect Downing to hit the back of the net when he twice cut inside? Did anybody expect Noble to bury that free kick? Dear God, unless we are awarded a penalty, this bunch have no idea where the back of the net is!

How desperate is it when the fans stand to applaud the introduction of Carlton Cole, a player who couldn't find a club after we released him? Now I'm not having a go at the guy here, but when you NEED A GOAL, who is the last man you turn to? The Upton Park faithful stood as one man to encourage Carlton on his introduction, but it was an act of kindness, not an expression of expectation. And following his introduction, we looked more stretched and Villa should have scored twice whilst we created that solitary half chance for Joe Cole.

The six man midfield can work, if the personnel are right. Jarvis, for one, is a waste of space. Allardyce quotes the 38 crosses we put into the box, but Villa had three tall centre backs parked in there and we had Nolan on his own. Now Captain Kev is great when he ghosts in unnoticed, but when he is the target man, his effectiveness inside the penalty area is lost. And who else broke into the box? Morrison a couple of times, Collison maybe twice, Jarvis himself, and Downing, but never in a central position - until Joe Cole came on.

The formation surprised me. When I saw the team, I expected Collison to be at the front of the six, possibly swapping places with Morrison and Nolan. Instead, Allardyce changed a fluid six into a rigid five plus one. Jarvis and Downing played like Redknapp and Sissons in their prime, only without Hurst and Byrne to hit in the box. Time and again, Villa's full-backs were beaten but when the ball came over, it hit a West Ham No Man's Land because we had nobody in the box. I could have been at the centre of Villa's defence and the Midlanders would still have kept a clean sheet!

So where do we go from here? Well unless Petric is up to it, I suspect we have to persist with the "false number 9", but then we simply have to get as many goal scorers into the team as we can. That means no place for Jarvis and a start for Joe Cole, irrespective of his defensive liabilities.

The start point must be Noble and Diame at the base of the six. They are the best defensive midfielders in the squad and Diame is a beast when on form, whilst Noble increasingly controls the midfield. The other four players then have to be used in a fluid way, interchanging with each other so that the opposition defenders don't know who to pick up. My four would be Morrison, Nolan, Downing and Joe Cole, with Collison introduced for the last twenty minutes when Nolan's legs tire. Like Nolan, Joe Cole instinctively breaks into the box, and runs at clever angles. He came on and had two shots on goal, and might well have scored the winner had Noble's attempted pass not been intercepted as he broke behind the Villa centre backs.

One thing's for sure, there's no point setting up to feed Carroll when Carroll isn't on the pitch! Yes he might have scored three on Saturday given those 38 crosses, but he can't score when he's sat in the bloody stands! Allardyce needs to stop harking on about luck and start working out genuine solutions. He was the twat who opted for Downing whilst Remy was allowed to join Newcastle. The need for a striker was obvious to everybody else because everybody else understands that 38 crosses to nobody are absolutely bloody pointless!

Player Ratings: Jussi 9; Demel 7, Tomkins 6, Reid 6, Rat 5; Noble 8, Collison 6; Jarvis 6, Morrison 6, Downing 7, Nolan 7 Subs Carlton Cole 5, Joe Cole 6, Diame (not on long enough).

Half Time West Ham 0 Aston Villa 0 - No surprises there then!

So, the inclusion of Collison has meant that we have reverted to a half way house between 4-5-1 and 4-6-0, with Nolan moved forward to play the lone striker come advanced play maker role. The possession stats are superb - something like 60-40 in our favour - and all allegations of long ball football must be consigned to the rubbish bin, but sadly for all our possession, we look absolutely toothless up front, and worryingly vulnerable to a Wiemann led break.

In truth, the best chance fell to Villa in that first 45, with Villa knocking a long ball over the top and Wiemann outstripping Tomkins. To be fair to JT, Wiemann is a speed merchant and Tomkins stuck at his job, staying on the Villa's man's shoulder, whilst avoiding making a red card inducing challenge. As a result, Wiemann was always conscious of the defenders presence and so was unable to compose himself for his finish; and Jussi did what Jussi does best, spreading himself wide and blocking the effort.

Wiemann had another chance minutes later as Villa sprang forward from our corner, but Morrison stayed with him and Webb was kind when waving play on after a six of one and half a dozen of the other tussle. On another day, a free kick might have been awarded and a dodgy red card shown. Maybe the luck is with us.

Going forward, Jarvis and Downing keep crossing in to the box, but with three big centre backs marking an advanced Nolan, it's all been far too easy for Villa to defend. Where can we conjure a goal from? My bet would be Joe Cole, with Jarvis sacrificed second half. The trouble is, Villa may be ahead by the time he is introduced!

Return of Collison could be key

Interesting. Allardyce has apparently stuck with 4-6-0 but has dropped Diame and replaced him with Jack Collison, who will presumably exchange with Morrison as the "False Number 9".

This is an interesting one. We looked so much better against Burnley when Collison replaced Diame, and he is much more naturally suited to breaking in to the box. Of all the players in the squad, he and Joe Cole seem best suited to the fluid formation that Allardyce has been forced to adopt.

The inclusion of Jarvis ahead of Cole is disappointing in my book, and the "ideal 6" would probably have Diame and Noble at its base, with Morrison, Joe Cole, Collison and Downing providing the attacking foursome, but that, of course, would mean leaving Nolan out - and to be fair to Captain Kev, he won the first penalty at Turf Moor.

This is a big, big game and we desperately need to return to winning ways. No Petric again, not even on the sub's bench. Is he injured or just crap? Time will tell!

Reid to Arsenal for £6m? £26m more like!

Well I know we have been taken for mugs more than a few times in the past when selling players, but not even West Ham would consider letting Reid leave for anything less than £15m. And given Arsenal now have money to burn, if they really want Reid the bidding should begin around the £25m mark.

Dear God, how many years is it since we sold Rio for £18m to Leeds? The idea that Reid could go for a third of that sum is absolutely laughable.

Just look at our defensive record this season. Okay, Man City tore us apart, but leaving aside that game, we have looked wonderfully organised defensively, and Reid is the best player in that superbly performing back five.

It's probably a nonsense report, but it would be reassuring to hear Sullivan and Gold telling Wenger that he would need to beat the British transfer record for a defender if he wants to prise the New Zealander away from us!

Capital One delighted to keep Manchester City, Manchester United, Tottenham & Chelsea apart!

Well that was convenient wasn't it? Unless you support Leicester, West Ham, Stoke, Sunderland or  Southampton of course!

You sponsor a mean nothing cup so what's the best way to generate interest? Set up two 2-leg semi-finals between the three biggest teams in England and one of Spurs or West Ham - and as Spurs are the marginally bigger club (until West Ham occupy the Olympic Stadium), give the Cockyfools home advantage!

Meanwhile, given the hammering Tottenham took at White Hart Lane at the hands of West Ham, an executive from Capital One may well be on the phone to the FA this morning with an additional request: "We would very much like the game at White Hart Lane to be refereed by Kevin Friend".

Watch this space!

West Ham's reserves and kids urinate in the Claret!

So Burnley are running away with the Championship. Interesting. And according to Leeds and QPR fans who respond to this blog, West Ham are heading for the drop. Interesting again. Well, on the basis of last night's game, there's not much point in any side winning promotion from this season's Championship then because the gulf to the Prem is patently huge!

West Ham took to the field just 48 hours after playing Swansea. A combination of reserves and kids were selected. The management had precious little time to prepare, with a journey from Swansea to London and London to Burnley involved in completing the back to back fixtures. The West Ham team included Potts, Chambers and Ruddock, three young kids. There were nine changes from the starting 11 against Swansea and both Diame and Tomkins, the two retained, were substituted to save their legs. And West Ham utterly dominated the second 45 minutes.

It's true that two penalties were required but both penalties were conceded to prevent goals being scored, and the referee was kind to the Clarets when producing only one red card. In the twenty minutes building to the first goal, poor Burnley could not get the ball, chasing shadows to such an extent that you would think West Ham's stiffs were Barcelona. So how the hell are Burnley top of the division?

From a West Ham perspective, it was all very pleasing. The three kids look good and may well have a future. Maiga didn't look out of his depth - perhaps THIS is his level. Collison and Downing combined well when brought on. Adrain looked our best understudy keeper for a few seasons now. And there's the consolation that if we were to go down, even selling the major wage earners, we should storm the Championship!

As for QPR, Leeds and co - God help them if they do get up! Because, like Burnley, they will then find out what the Premiership is really about!

Half Time: Swansea 0 West Ham 0 - Hammers should be leading!

Well, not for the first time this season, it is so far so good after 45 minutes. We have been the better team and have created the better chances, and with a goal scorer in the team would be ahead by now. Amazingly, we have been the better passing team and Swansea and it is Laudrup's team that have played more long balls. If this goes on for the next 45, Sam will be calling himself Allardrup!

In fact, Demel should have scored twice, clearing the crossbar on both occasions from inside the six yard box. Nolan has also put a chance wide after an excellent run and cross by Jarvis, and Downing has forced two saves from Vonn. At the other end, Jussi stopped a header with his shoulder and Tomkins put in a brilliant blocked interception to prevent a cross finding Michu deep into our area.

Defensively Tomkins, Reid, Rat and Demel have been excellent thus far, whilst the midfield have again harried and closed. The stand out man in the middle of the park has again been Noble, whilst Diame has been the doziest to date.

Jarvis is on for the all too brittle Vaz Te. Let's hope we can keep this up and pinch a winner, especially after Sunderland's victory!

West Ham set to continue with false number 9 at Swansea

Let's face it, whatever team Allardyce selects, we will be using a false number nine at Swansea. Analysts went way over the top after our win at Spurs, hailing the self proclaimed tactical guru for his genius in unveiling his new "False Number 9" formation, failing to understand that Alliadichi  had been employing the same tactic since the start of the season.

Be honest, you couldn't find a more "False Number 9" than Mogadon Maiga could you? In fact, the guy is a "False Footballer" based on everything I have seen so far. Brainless. Clueless. Gutless. Passionless. The big difference at White Hart Lane is that we started the game with 11 players on the pitch instead of the 10-players-plus-Mogadon formation employed by Allardyce up until that game.

Now, it seems, Carlton Cole may start. It is true that Carlton, unlike Mogadon, has a presence but he has been a "False Number 9" all his career, being a striker with an allergy to the back of the net! Carlton is an excellent footballer, just as long as he has his back to the goal. However, show him those terrifying white posts with that dizzying crossbar connecting them and the nauseous inducing netting behind, and the poor guy loses the ability to control his body: his eyes glaze over, his head spins and his legs turn to jelly.

And the final option, Petric, hasn't scored a goal since Christmas.

Poor Laudrup must have been having sleeping nights ever since that 4-0 thumping of Blunderland!

Will young Lee show Freddie Sears what might have been?

So another Academy product is out on loan and, based on recent history, that may be very bad news indeed. Yes Noble and Tomkins both had their loan stints - as did Rio and Judas Defoe of course - but more recently, when a kid is sent to the lower divisions, it generally means that he doesn't quite have what it takes to cut it at the top.

Whereas Spurs have sent young Carroll into the Championship, our youngsters tend to end up a rung or two lower on the ladder, and whilst they look good playing in amongst dross, they find playing with the bigger boys in the top division beyond them. There have been a few we have been excited about but Hines, Stanislas and Sears all proved to be duds and Potts may not be training on.

We had hopes about Lee when even Allardyce brought him on at Old Trafford and against Stoke, but if he is going to hack it, he needs to tear up the First Division and score stacks of goals. Freddie Sears has found his level at Colchester; the hope is that Lee will prove more than one cut above the man once hailed as the new Tony Cottee!

Allardichi 1 Pellegridyce 3 - But no disgrace in that.

Ok we lost and, if we are honest, we lost pretty heavily, but Man City were pretty bloody good and, our centre backs apart, we were decent. And to be fair to Tomkins and Reid, they were horribly exposed by Man City's quick passing football and excellent movement. Last game, Big Sam thought he was the dog's bollocks, now he understands that his claims to have revolutionised football with his 4-6-0 formation were pure bollocks.

First the goals. Agüero's opener was a bit tasty. True the ball travelled far too far through the middle of our midfield and defence, but the dummy by Negredo was breath-taking. The ball went so close to him that his decision to simply ignore it would have bemused Moore and Beckenbauer, never mind Tomkins and Reid. Agüero's run was perfectly timed and Reid was still on New Zealand time as the Argentinian ran in on Jussi and buried the chance superbly.

The second goal was not so easy to excuse. Reid was drawn out wide and was done all ends up by Negredo, who was then sandwiched as Demel joined the Kiwi in trying to close out the threat. The result was yet another stupid free kick conceded in a dangerous area. Over came the free kick and the only surprise was just how much space Agüero had on the edge of the six yard box as he rose to head home. Who was marking him? Nolan I think, but the entire West Ham team stood and watched as he scored - Jussi apart who valiantly tried to deflect the ball over and wide, simply pushing it into the top corner.

And that was that, we thought. It was now just a question of how many. And then up popped Vaz Te, who had been largely anonymous until then, with a deft overhead kick into the bottom corner. There were suspicions of offside in the build up - and I think Diame was off before  he crossed - but who cares. 1-2 and game on!

Briefly, very briefly, Man City creaked, but as we pushed forward, more and more gaps appeared in the middle of the park, and Jussi made save after save. So when the third City goal came, it was no surprise. Agüero ran at the heart of the defence, Reid missed the opportunity to put in a tackle, Tomkins prevented him getting in a shot but the ball was pulled back to Silva, whose finish was sublime. 1-3. Job done for Pellegridyce's men!

And the bits in between? Well Noble was superb, putting in three fantastic tackles and recycling the ball superbly. Diame ran around a lot but looked uncomfortable in the formation much of the time. Nolan did ok, but he is wasted sitting deep and when he moved forward, he hardly got a sniff of the ball apart from deflecting wide after Hart had saved from Diame. Morrison was ordinary and received a timely reality check. Vaz Te was largely anonymous apart from his goal but the decision to withdraw him was still odd after he had scored. Downing was decent but never devastating.

Sadly, defensively, we were poor. Demel did well until he went off injured but O'Brien was far too easily bypassed after he came on. Boomtown was poor. And Tomkins and Reid had their worst games for some considerable time. Jussi, however, was excellent.

But let's not be too glum. Sunderland were thumped. So were Norwich and Cardiff. Palace will go down. So even without Carroll, we should have enough to stay up. Shouldn't we?

Player ratings: Jussi 10; Demel 7, Tomkins 4, Reid 3, Rat 4; Nolan 5 Noble 9; Morrison 5, Diame 6, Vaz Te 5, Downing 6  Subs: O'Brien 3, Jarvis 6, Petric (not on long enough to rate).

Collins and Maiga don't make the bench!

No surprise that Allardyce has stuck with the eleven that beat Spurs, but the absence of Collins and Maiga from the bench is perhaps a little strange.

So, Carlton Cole has already proved himself better than Maiga! It makes you wonder why he was released and rumoured suitors for Mogodon were rebuffed. Now we will struggle to give him away!

And what happens if Tomkins or Reid are injured? O'Brien, Rat or Demel at centre back I suppose.

No surprise value this time around, of course. And Man City are better than Spurs! So, let's hope but not expect too much!

El Apache Clarke sends Sheffield United to bottom of old Third Division!

Sacking David Weir didn't do much good then did it? But then, nothing will save Shafting United until the curse of Tevez is removed; and that will only happen when McScab and his Dusty Bin Arab co-owner repay the £25m blood money extorted from West Ham.

Tevez was at it again today, disguised this time as journeyman Coventry striker Leon Clarke, who single-handedly scored two goals, thereby beating the Blunted Blades on his own and sending the Full Monties to the foot of the Old Third Division.

In front of a gate of just 2,078, Sheffield United lost 3-2 and took another decisive step towards utter and total humiliation; and how we West Ham fans are loving it!

Allardyce shows the world of football how to play the game!

Ok, it was only one game and ok he only employed the tactic because Carroll was injured and we don't have another striker worthy of the name, but that's not stopped the English Jose from claiming that his 4-6-0 formation has changed the game! The silly old sod genuinely seems to believe that the "false number 9" tactic was his own invention, crystallised in his own mighty footballing brain, fashioned on the West Ham training ground, and executed for the very first time as West Ham wiped the floor with Tottenham.

Now, it might be a little rude to mention Spain and Barcelona as Allardyce waxes lyrical about his own tactical brilliance, so perhaps we shouldn't at this stage.

And it might be cruel to pour a little cold water on Sam's ego by pointing out that the tactic only worked brilliantly for 13 minutes of the game - during which time all three goals were scored.

And it might be deemed wicked to say that one of the three goals came via a centre back at a set piece, a more traditional Allardyce approach to the game.

It would also be very unfair to mention the opening two minutes of the second half when Spurs ripped us to shreds twice. Had Defoe netted when clean through, you can bet your life that Petric would have been on the pitch before Spurs had the chance to score a second and move out of sight. Except he might not have had time to get stripped off before that second goal went in!

Based on the first 45 minutes, what was there to suggest that we would score three goals? Nolan had a great chance, but from a set piece. And Nolan had a half chance, from a header following a very traditional looking cross. Does anybody remember a brilliant diagonal pass releasing Vaz Te to run in unchallenged on the keeper? Or of Morrison running at the heart of the Spurs defence, released by the "false number 9" Diame? I can't! Nope, the first 45 was all about closing, chasing and harrying - pretty much like the tactics employed at Southampton and Newcastle, but without the liability that is Maiga! And, let's not forget that the half finished 0-0 and I can't recall a shot on target!

So what really beat Spurs? A corner. Reid got his head to it and thumped home the rebound off of Nolan. And then Spurs panicked. They threw too many men forward. They left themselves vulnerable at the back. Then Noble played a brilliant pass and Vaz Te got lucky. And Morrison came over all Ravel and justified his hype.

I don't want to prick Allardyce's bubble, but he really does need to get a sense of perspective. He remains Allardyce, not Alliadiche, and had Carroll been fit, we would not have seen that formation in a million years.

I was awoken at 4.30 am last Sunday morning with my bed swaying  up and down as if I was aboard a ship in a swell. I thought the scientists were right, that it had been caused by an earthquake registering 4.6 on the Richter Scale,  but it seems I was simply feeling the tremors radiating out from Allardyce's tactical brain, warning of the "Big One" that would hit later that day as Big Sam released the earthquake that would change the game of football for ever.

Well until Petric or Andy Carroll are fit, anyway!

Hodgson Snubs West Ham again as Liverpool man is called up

Did Hodgson have a snooze through the Tottenham game one wonders? How else can you explain his decision to overlook Ravel in favour of Raheem Sterling?

Both are highly talented bad boys, of course, but surely Morrison has done more to justify a call up than the Liverpool man? His goal against Spurs was nothing short of sensational and his play has been consistently impressive since he came into the side. And given Cleverley is the man who has dropped out, Morrison looks the more natural replacement.

In fact, it is beginning to look as if Woy has a prejudice against West Ham men. He has, after all, consistently ignored the claims of Noble, Nolan, Joe Cole, Tomkins and Downing. Meanwhile, old nag Milner gets picked in every squad, even though he isn't good enough for his club team and he looks distinctly mediocre every time he pulls on an international shirt.

It's time for the Davids to speak out, challenging Woy to justify his policy of overlooking the claims of West Ham players in a World Cup year. Do you know who won the bloody World Cup in 1966 Hodgson?

Ravel uses Tottenham warm up to prepare for altogether tougher challenge

It's good to see that Ravel used the Tottenham game to warm up for the much more challenging match against San Marino U21's. Sadly, our new £19m Release Clause man couldn't get on the score sheet - a feet achieved with sublime ease against Tottenham's £100m team - but he did play a full part in helping England's next Golden Generation to overcome the might of the 61 kilometre squared giants of international football's kids.

Spurs manager AVB will, no doubt, take solace from the fact that even the Most Serene Republic of San Marino's budding super stars could not fully shackle the former Manchester United tearaway, whilst delighting in the news that  his very own superstar in the making, young Kane, put the mighty Italian opposition to the sword with a truly stunning hat-trick.

And with Andros Townsend netting for the full England team tonight, some might be wondering why AVB spent so much of the Bale money bringing in mercenary foreigners. Because as West Ham proved at White Hart Lane and England proved tonight, English players can play a bit if given their head!

Where now for Big Sam?

So, after the  stunning victory at Spurs, the big question is, 'What does Allardyce do now?' After decades of playing one way, he has suddenly discovered that you don't need to hit long balls forward to an immobile forward and that players can actually interchange positions over the course of a game. Talk about a conversion on the road to Green Lanescus!

The transformation on Sunday was so spectacular and the result so sensational that Doctor Evil may have painted himself into a corner. He was clearly loving the adulation post performance, and all that Alliardicci clap trap only confirmed what we already knew, that the English Jose really does think he is God's gift to football management.

So what does he do now? Does he revert to Plan A and court ridicule if Man City rip us to shreds as we pump long balls up to no one - alias Mogadon Maiga - or does he bid for immortality by turning the club into the Premiership's very own False Number Nine Barcelona?

If anything, the return of Joe Cole makes the fluid formation even more tempting. Diame or Cole to alternate with Vaz Te? On paper it sounds like a non contest. Indeed, the prospect of  Nolan, Morrison, Cole, Vaz Te and Downing all interchanging positions, means that the attacking permutations could be very exciting.

There is a Plan P of course, with Petric expected to be fit, and to be fair, he is not a totem pole either. And with Morrison away on England duty, there's always a risk of Sod's Law striking and Ravel being injured.

What's great for now is that, for the first  time in a long time, we really don't know how Allardyce will play it. And if we don't know, what hope have the opposition of knowing? I admitted at half time that I was struggling to work out the formation, so just imagine what it was like for the Tottenham defenders who would have been drilled on how to deal with long balls up to a big number 9.

Fingers crossed that Allardyce decides to give it another go and that the players pull off another miracle against Unreal City. Because then we might actually have a chance of watching football at Upton Park for the first time in ages!

After the Tottenham Trouncing, Captain Kev Sounds Like Manager in Waiting

Nolan has his critics but I have always been a big fan, so much so that I nominated him as the Player of the Season the year Parker was stupidly given the award. And listening to his post match interview after Tottenham's tonking, you can see exactly why Sam Alliadichi loves him so much. The guy is captain, mentor, player and player manager rolled into one.

Of course, our Kevin knows which side his bread is buttered, so he astutely sings his manager's praises, but it is the way he talks about Morrison and his threat to kick RVT up the backside that is so impressive. This is no ordinary captain, this is a father figure on the field, somebody who marshals the troops, keeps the spirits up, and communicates the manager's wishes in a language the players can understand.

He even got it right with Maiga, acknowledging that the guy was on the bench, but indicating that the next two weeks were crucial because of the opportunity it gave to get Petric fit. Interestingly, Carlton was not mentioned, which may be a clue that we are not quite as desperate as we were a week ago.

So, he may not be the quickest, nor the most mobile, but Nolan promises to be a fixture in the team for a little while yet. And who would back against him finishing the season as our highest goal scorer and on him becoming assistant manager to Alliadichi in a couple of year's time?

Tottenham reaction to West Ham humiliation

They hath disgraced us and hindered us ninety eight million, laughed at our losses, mocked at our gains, scorned our new stadium, thwarted our bargains, cooled our friends, heated our enemies—and what’s their reason? We are Tottenham men. Hath not a Tottenham man eyes? Hath not a Tottenham man hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a West Ham man is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not crawl into the corner and complain about how unfair it all is? After the trip to Moscow, we needed a rest, we will dissemble now in that. If a Tottenham man wrongs a West Ham man, what is his humility? Revenge. If a West Ham man wrongs a Tottenham man, what should his sufferance be by previous example? Why, to complain. The villainy they have inflicted upon us has been executed—and it shall go hard on AVB as we will now have to spend another fifty million!

Tottenham 0 West Ham 3 - Were you watching Benjamin Netanyahu?

Were you watching Moses? Were you watching Shylock? Were you watching David Ben Gurion? Were you watching Golda Meir? Our lads gave your boys one hell of a beating!

Where to start? The first half performance was good, but the warning signs were there. Townsend had the beating of Boomtown and Tottenham were beginning to camp in our half. True we had fashioned the best two chances of the first 45, with Nolan heading wide from Downing's cross and then volleying wide from Noble's brilliant free kick, but there was a sense that with those opportunities spurned, the second 45 was going to follow a familiar course, with the best we could really hope for being another 0-0 draw.

And when Tottenham came out of the second half traps like Mick the Miller on anabolic steroids, the writing really did appear to be on the wall. Tomkins had a nightmare two minutes and with Jussi saving well from Defoe, it seemed for all the world as if we were going to cave in to a three or four goal defeat.

But then something remarkable happened. We regained our composure. We took hold of the ball. And miracle upon miracle, we passed the bloody thing to players in claret and blue.

It was about 10 minutes into the second half. Rat won the ball deep in our half and passed it sideways to Tomkins. The ball was played up to Noble, who played it back to Tomkins, who played it sideways to Rat. By this time I was apoplectic. "Get it out! Play it long" I found myself yelling, so conditioned to Allardyce football. Instead the ball went forward some five yards to Diame. Who played it back to Rat. Who played it sideways to Noble. Who dinked it forward to Nolan. Who.... But this was getting bloody silly! This was an Allardyce team playing the ball on the ground, making passing patterns and moving the ball forward in a controlled fashion. Against Spurs! Incredible!

And meanwhile, the movement was excellent. Diame was playing so high up the pitch, drifting infield, pulling wide. Vaz Te was dropping deep, then pulling wide. Morrison was looking to get ahead of the striker. Downing kept popping up here, then there. Noble was everywhere, collecting the ball and prompting another forward move. Rat was dashing forward. Demel was dashing even further forward. It wasn't quite total football, but it certainly wasn't the usual Allardyce bollocks! So when we scored, we bloody well deserved to!

True it was from a set piece, but who cares? Over came Downing's corner, Reid soared, headed goal-wards, Nolan did a Tevez by blocking the shot on the opposition's goal line, but the ball rebounded to the Kiwi who gleefully smashed it home! 1-0! And be honest, like me you thought, too bloody early, Spurs have time to score two or three in the time remaining!

But Spurs didn't score! We did. Noble played a sublime ball through to Vaz Te who, clean through on Lloris, played a one two off the keeper's body before deflecting the ball into the gaping net. True RVT was a little lucky, but you make your own luck in football, and Maiga wouldn't have made it into the box and wouldn't have hit his initial shot on target, so all credit to the man who Allardyce tried to freeze out.

But the best was yet to come. Diame flicked the ball on to Morrison who drove at the heart of the Spurs defence, riding two challenges before drawing Lloris and dinking the ball over him into the net. It was a sublime goal from a young man with a very special talent. He is raw, he is probably still a very flawed human being, but if he scores a few more like that, we may find a club or two triggering his £19m release clause!

Mind you, there were still eleven minutes to go, plus injury time, and there was still that dread of what might happen should Spurs score. How absurd! Not only didn't Spurs score, they didn't look like scoring! Collins came on and Reid seized the opportunity to step up into midfield and played a lovely ball out wide to Downing. Spurs huffed and puffed, but we controlled the game.

And whisper this quietly, but it could have been 5-0! Tomkins forced a superb save from Lloris and Diame was denied a penalty when definitely tripped in the box.

Amazing. This really was better than sex! In fact, apart from that Great Escape victory at Old Trafford, this has to be the most amazing West Ham result of the C21st! Truly, truly incredible. Who needs Andy Carroll?

Player ratings:
Jussi 6 (One decent save but was in no man's land under a Spurs free kick);
Demel 9 (He was immense, up and down the touchline all afternoon.)
Tomkins 7 (Excellent except for his 2 minute nightmare at the start of the second half)
Reid 10 (Superb all afternoon and scored!)
Rat 8 (Had a torrid time against Townsend but stuck to his job and came out on top in the end. One brilliant run into the Spurs box was the trigger for our revival);
Noble 9 (What a free kick and what a pass for Vaz Te. He was everywhere, linking the play, closing down Spurs players, stealing the ball away, tackling. Come on Sav and Stani, point out that one bad corner!)
Nolan 7 (He was selfless, plugging gaps, closing, chasing, challenging)
Diame 9 (Back to his best in this one. Lovely pass for Morrison's goal, and ate up the ground all afternoon)
Downing 8 (Looked like a good buy! So much more intelligent than Jarvis!)
Morrison 8 (Great, great, great goal. One very bad error when lost possession when running back towards his own goal, but so what?)
Vaz Te 8 (He scored! A forward bloody scored! And his movement forced Allardyce to find a Plan B!)

Subs: Collins 7, Cole 6, O'Brien 10 (For the bloody great big smile as he came on with a couple of minutes to play!)

Half Time Tottenham 0 West Ham 0 - Best chance to Nolan!

Well that was a lot better than I expected! To be fair to Maiga, Vaz Te has looked every bit as ineffective in the striker role, but the rest of the team have been huge. Tomkins and Reid have made countless crucial interceptions and well timed challenges and the midfield have been chasing and closing, but also breaking as well.

The formation is difficult to work out. Diame is playing incredibly high, Nolan is dropping deeper, Morrison is trying to run beyond Vaz Te when given the chance, and both Rat and Demel have been pushing very high when they have the opportunity to do so. It seems pretty fluid and, thus far has worked well.

The trouble is, can we keep it up for another 45 minutes given the energy already used up in the first 45? Spurs have had a couple of sniffs, but no clear cut chances yet, although Townsend is looking very dangerous. He is one hell of a prospect!

But the best chances of the half have both fallen to Nolan. The first came from a Downing cross but was headed tamely wide. The second was created by a superb Noble freekick, dinked over the wall into the path of Nolan who had peeled off the wall and ran in behind. Sadly his volley, on the stretch skidded a yard or two wide.

It's likely to be a heart stopping second 45. Spurs have some big guns on the bench and will be looking to exploit our tired legs in the last 20 minutes, and any sleepy brains in the first five minutes of the second half.

Jarvis, Maiga and O'Brien dropped!

Well it's not before time! At last Allardyce has woken up to the fact that Maiga is shit and grasped that Vaz Te, the man he wanted to offload, is a far better option up front. As for Jarvis, he has been on borrowed time all season so, with Downing fit and Cole on his way back, it is no surprise to see him parked on the bench. No assists all season says it all, sadly, and at £11m, he is looking a huge waste of money.

O'Brien, however, can count himself unlucky. True he was stupid to give away that penalty against Hull, but I think he has been one of our better players so far this season. Tomkins preferred ahead of Collins again, which is another interesting choice.

Can we get anything from the game? If we do, it will surely be on the basis of suffocating Tottenham's vastly superior players. But fingers crossed that Vaz Te, Downing and Morrison turn it on, proving you don't have to pay £25m on foreign imports! Mind you, it's worrying that AVB has called our bluff and selected Defoe, something we have been trying to provoke through Cole singing his former team mate's praises.

Into the bottom three

So, when was the last time we were in the bottom three of the Premiership? You have to go back to the time of Avram. Six or seven games into the season and the table is generally taking shape, and whilst we currently have a game in hand, it is hard to imagine us bringing anything back from Tottenham tomorrow, or indeed against Man City next week.

Captain Kev has been wheeled out to play the role of Corporal Jones, telling everybody "Don't panic!" but anybody with any sense knows that we now face one hell of a battle to avoid the drop. Remember, thirteen of the squad have slipped through the Premiership trap door before; and without Carroll, there is no fire power in the team. And personally I wouldn't be surprised if Carroll is the new Dean Ashton, extending his pay day on the basis of forever being a month or so away from fitness.

Now all we need is for the fans to disgrace the club at Tottenham tomorrow.

Letting Collison move to Bournemouth is madness!

Ok, so we all know the problem. We have a team that can't score goals. The strikers are useless, and the midfielders get a nose bleed if they get anywhere near the box - Nolan apart who is now so slow that even Faye could pick up his jogs.

True Morrison may be another exception but, if we are honest, he was pretty ineffective for the first 60 minutes against Hull and only came into his own following the introduction of Downing and Vaz Te.

And what does Collison offer? Precisely what nobody else offers, a hunger to get into the box and that useful knack of often being exactly where the ball ricochets to. He isn't Lampardesque, but he's probably the closest we have to it, as his 13 goals from 80 first team starts suggests.

So what does Allardyce do? He loans him out to bloody Bournemouth!

Now I'm not saying JC is our saviour as a starter, but I am a huge fan of using him for the last 20 minutes of a game, when defenders tire and their concentration is prone to lapsing. It's true he squanders a high percentage of his chances, but at least he gets into the box and gives opposition defenders something to think about.

But Allardyce doesn't fancy him it seems, unlike Maiga, Taylor and Jarvis! But then Allardyce didn't bring Collison to the club did he, so his ego isn't pricked by overlooking him. As for the others, Sullivan might reasonably demand of the English Jose, "So what idiot told me to invest £18m of the club's money on three players who aren't even good enough to make the first 16?"

Look at the important stats you idiot Allardyce!

Listen to him! What an idiotic twat. It was the referee's fault. Well it always is when we lose according to Allardyce, but this time he does have a point.

It was the players' fault. We created chances and when you create chances you should score goals. It's like a deformed handicapped ugly dwarf with puss weeping pimples wandering into a party full of beautiful women. The beautiful women are there, so he should score. Obviously.

Read the stats from yesterday's game and it looks like Allardyce has a point. We had 18 shots in the game apparently, twice as many as Hull, and got five on target. Ergo, we wasted chances. But did we really? Apart from the Tomkins header, which beat the keeper and found a defender on the line, I can remember two clear cut chances. Diame made a complete hash of his chance, air kicking a brilliant pulled back cross from Rat. And Rat himself fired wide after controlling the ball superbly on his chest before shooting like a Romanian defender.

So where does a shot count of 18 come from exactly? Well Vaz Te had that overhead kick. It would have been a brilliant goal but he was forced into attempting the incredible by a poor cross in the first place. Then there was the Vaz Te free kick which cleared the bar. Well, Diamante apart, we have complained for years that we have nobody in the team able to capitalise from these sorts of opportunities but what has Allardyce done to address the issue? Then there was Noble's shot from outside the box. But tell me, how many goals has Noble scored from open play over the last four years? You have enough fingers on one hand to count!

Then there was that Maiga shot, of course. But he was too far out, too wide of the goal and under too much pressure to stand any realistic chance of scoring. Had we started with two players up top, Maiga would have had the option of crossing, and one of the two defenders snapping at his heels would have been otherwise engaged. But Allardyce only plays with one up top and yesterday started with Diame and Jarvis wide, neither of whom are noted for their goal scoring acumen.

And apart from those efforts? Well the rest were snatched at half chances, feeble headers from poor crosses or speculative attempts from unrealistic positions.

Well Allardyce is a stats man, so let's look at the stats shall we? The Premiership goal scoring record of the ten outfield players that started yesterday's game reads as follows:

O'Brien - 2 goals from 87 games.
Rat - 0 goals from 2 games.
Tomkins - 3 goals from 86 games.
Reid - 1 goal from 48 games
Noble - 19 goals from 161 games (including 12 penalties)
Nolan - 62 goals from 342 games
Jarvis -17 goals from 145 games
Diame - 8 goals from 135 games
Morrison - 1 goal from 4 games
Maiga - 2 goals from 22 games

Now do the sums. Even allowing for the potential statistical anomaly of Morrison, who needs to score 9 goals a season to maintain his present ratio, this team has scored a combined total of 115 goals from 1032 games! Take out Nolan's stats, and many want Nolan out of the team, and the figures make truly terrifying reading, with just 53 goals scored from 690 games. Take out Noble's penalties and that becomes 41 goals from 690 games!

Now if Allardyce cannot understand why this team is not scoring goals after reading those statistics, he truly is an arse! And that is before we take into account his 4-5-1, safety first tactics!

It's an unfortunate given of the game  that you cannot win a match if you do not score, so how exactly does Allardyce expect to win enough games to survive in the Prem with a team that has such an appalling goal scoring return? It's not the number of shots that matters, it's who the chances are falling to, as Collins, Rat, Maiga and Diame have illustrated in recent games.

Of course, add Joe Cole and Stewart Downing to the team and the picture improves, but the problem still remains that without a goal scoring striker, the net return will still be insufficient to average a point a game.

And here's another terrifying stat - Jarvis didn't assist a single goal in the Prem last season! Yes he got in lots of crosses, but none of those crosses led directly to a goal. And he is supposedly one of our most effective attacking weapons!

Yesterday, we played for a draw at Hull City. The team was set up to keep what we had at the start of the match and, yet again, the tactic seemed to be to keep a clean sheet and hope that we could pinch a goal. Fair enough at Newcastle and Southampton perhaps, but against Hull City? Dear God, they had Faye at centre back! He was old and slow in the Championship two years ago but he was able to keep pace with Nolan and Maiga yesterday, despite having only just returned from injury. That is terrifying!

So, why are we struggling and why will we continue to struggle? Because of the personnel that Allardyce has recruited and the tactics he is employing. It's not Kevin Friend's fault. It's not the players' fault because they can only do what they can do, it's Allardyce's fault, and he needs to find a Plan B fast or we will go down.

Take those vital stats and shove them up your big fat gormless arse Allardyce!

Tigers 1 Hammers 0 - Referee Friend Receives Hull City's Man of the Match Award!

Well the penalty awarded to Hull in the first half was as soft as wet toilet paper but debateable if O'Brien did, indeed, stupidly shove Brady in the back, but the failure to award an equaliser penalty for the most obvious hand ball you will see this season was utterly inexplicable. Livermore clearly put his arm to ball and it rebounded off the point of his elbow. How the officials thought he had put the ball behind for a corner, given his body was nowhere near the ball, will remain a mystery. Although the suspicion is that Kevin was determined to be Hull's best Friend come what may!

Allardyce will do his nut, and with some justification, but that must not disguise his own crass stupidity. Once again we started with Maiga, and once again we looked utterly toothless. Time and again Mogadon failed to control the ball when it was played forward to him, and though he did, at long last, have a shot on target and also cleared the ball off his own line, he was woeful for the most part. Why he started, and why he stayed on for over 60 minutes, only Allardyce will know. Unless, of course, Petric is as crap as he looked after replacing Maiga!

But when Vaz Te came on, the game changed. He moved into space, he took on defenders, and he was hungry to get on the end of things. One freekick bent wide from outside the box and one overhead kick showed that he has more natural ability than both Petric and Maiga combined. It's time for Sam to swallow his pride and admit that he was wrong when trying to side line the man whose goal got us into the Prem.

And the introduction of Downing for Jarvis was also a factor in our second half improvement.

However, we are clutching at straws of comfort here. Yes we dominated the last 20 minutes, but we shouldn't forget that McGreggor didn't have to make a difficult save all game whereas Jussi made two impressive blocks and Livermore also hit the post. And we are talking Hull City here. Even Zola's West Ham could beat Hull City!

A crisis is unfolding. Allardyce will blame the officials and lament the fact that our best chance again fell to a defender, with Rat slicing the ball wide, but if you don't have a striker worthy of the name, how do expect chances to fall to somebody skilled at putting the ball in the net? Tomkins had a header cleared off the line, Rat sliced a chance wide, Rat set up Diame superbly, only for an air shot to follow and O'Brien delivered our best cross of the game. Doesn't say much for the offensive unit does it?

Player ratings: Jussi 7; O'Brien 4 (penalty award!), Tomkins 6, Reid 6, Rat 7; Noble 5; Nolan 6, Morrison 6, Diame 6, Jarvis 4; Maiga 3 Subs: Petric 2, Vaz Te 7, Downing 6

Half Time - Kevin a Friend of Hull City!

Was it a penalty? It looked bloody soft to me, but Hull City's best Friend, the referee, saw a push from O'Brien in the back of Brady and, following a fantastic swallow dive by the Hull player, the pen was awarded. If O'Brien did push him, he should be shot because Tomkins had the situation under control and was heading the ball clear. So, crass stupidity either on the part of the defender or the official, or a combination of the two. Give a penalty for that, and you have to give a penalty or a free kick every time players jostle, lean, nudge and shove at a corner!

Apart from that, the game has been pretty unremarkable and alarmingly predictable. I warned we would be behind inside the first quarter of an hour, and Hull scored after 11 minutes. Mind you, something staggering happened after 19 minutes and 27 seconds, Maiga had his first shot on target in the Prem this season! How many minutes in total has that taken exactly? Of course, the shot presented no problems, Maiga lacking the pace or guile to outstrip the ageing Faye after a lovely through ball by Jarvis.

Those on Maiga watch will have noted how often the ball has bounced away from him. This resulted in one missed chance inside the box, with Maiga receiving the ball in space in the box, only for a heavy touch to present the defender with an easy clearance. Faye must be thinking that playing in the Prem is a doddle!

Mind you, Maiga's ability to deflect the ball wide of the goal came into its own with a goal line clearance to prevent Hull going two up. Quite how he got the ball up and over the bar from his position of one foot in front of the goal line, only Maiga will know, but watching him in the opposite box, it is clearly a skill he has been working on in training!

We have enjoyed two other chances, one fluffed appallingly by Diame after a superb cut back cross from Rat, and another which saw a Tomkins header stopped on the line in a fashion that presented the referee with an opportunity to even up the dodgy penalty awards, but being a good Friend of Hull, Kevin decided against that!

Allardyce opts for dog crap!

So Maiga starts again, meaning that Vaz Te is sat on the bench once more alongside Petric. The selection is perverse but the pig headed one knows he knows best, so it looks like we are stuck with Maiga at least until Petric or Cole are fit to start.

If I was Vaz Te, I would be well pissed. OK, the teams he has scored against are not the best, but he has scored twice, which is two more times than Maiga. The other option was to play RVT out wide, but that would be far too positive a move given his reluctance to track back. And we are playing the might of Hull Tigers remember!

The other controversial pick sees Tomkins start ahead of Collins. I fear we could end up regretting that within 15 minutes of kick off. I like JT and remain hopeful that he will mature into a top class defender, but for the moment, I reckon Collins is the better bet. But perhaps Allardyce is belatedly punishing Ginge for not taking that opportunity against Southampton!

Noble is back of course, and Rat is preferred over Demel, allowing O'Brien to revert to the right. This is a game we need to win, but the team will set up to keep what we have got. I am not optimistic!

Vaz Te or Maiga?

Well, it shouldn't take long to answer that one. Strawberries & cream or dog shit? London or Leeds? Italy or Albania? Ron Greenwood or Avram Grant? Paradise or Purgatory?

So tell me, why the hell has Maiga started so many games whilst Vaz Te has been ignored? Bloody hell, Maiga hasn't even played for Bolton!

Hopefully, hopefully, Allardyce has got the message at last. If Petric isn't fit to start, for God's sake start with RVT!

Echoes of Avram Grant as West Ham Progress in League Cup

I did not see the game but the Cardiff equaliser was depressingly predictable after we took an early two goal lead. Without Reid, the centre of the defence is short of pace, whilst Chambers and McCartney were never going to provide a sense of solidity on the flanks. A win is a win, but the fact that we let a two goal lead slip and needed a late winner to progress, when playing against Cardiff City's stiffs, is worrying.

Perhaps more worrying still is the fact that this season is shaping up much the same as Avram's year in charge. Pre season went like a dream, we performed well in the League Cup, but when it came to the Prem...oh dear.

And for all the money spent by Allardyce, are we really any better than when Avram was in charge? Take out Carroll - and he never plays - and this is a mediocre team, Winston Reid apart who Grant brought to the club.

Remember, Nolan, Carroll, Jussi, Vaz Te, Taylor, Downing, O'Brien, Jarvis and Joe Cole have all suffered relegation from the Prem in their careers, and as QPR showed last season, if you pack your squad with failures, you ain't going to win the title in a hurry, even if you have spent a fortune to recruit them. You can, of course, add Tomkins, Collison, Noble and Reid to that "Relegated Club" giving us a baker's dozen of hanged men.

So, progress in the Capital One Fan Cup is great, but Cardiff's reserves should have been a push over and much tougher battles lay ahead. This still threatens to be a tough, tough season.

Ex Sunderland Boss Di Canio next in line to manage West Ham?

So, how many West Ham fans want him now? Not so long ago, the Claret and Blue Klan were hailing Il Duce as the best thing to happen to football management since Brian Clough. Any suggestions that he was too hot headed, and would be a disaster as a manager, were met with howls of derision from the West Ham faithful. Well, they won't admit to it publicly, but privately they might be having second thoughts now.

The Sunderland board may consider that another season in the Prem is justification for the crazy appointment, but I for one believe that O'Neill would have kept the Black Cats up anyway - they had a few lives left despite the catalogue of injuries.

And if O'Neill's sacking was knee jerk, Di Canio's appointment screamed short termism of the very worst kind. Sure, a firebrand manager will get an immediate reaction which may be worth a win or two, but sooner or later, millionaire players are going to think "Bugger this for a game of monkeys" when the man at the top reveals himself as a complete arsehole. Allardyce may be one dimensional tactically, but at least he has a track record to fall back on; Di Canio is just a jumped up little twat, end of!

Thank God we never approached him for the West Ham job because our Board would have found it much more difficult to remove him due to the adoration  he enjoys amongst our fans.  That adoration is utterly misplaced, as his Tom-foolery at Sunderland has proved, so hopefully he will never be linked with our club again.

Until, that is, Allardyce loses another game!

Was Noble to blame for the Everton defeat?

Noble's critics were quick to blame their bête noir for the defeat against Everton, conveniently forgetting that Everton's first equaliser resulted from a foul by Collins in exactly the same area of the pitch. There was no argument about the award when Collins rashly and needlessly tripped Barkley, but for some reason, Ginge has not come in for the same level of criticism, even though television replays appear to support my initial impression that Noble took the ball. Allardyce is certainly convinced that the referee erred.

Sadly, some of our fans seem to delight in a Noble error, to the point where you suspect that they are actually happy when he makes a mistake that costs us a game. Instead of lambasting the referee, these Noble haters rushed to their keyboards after the game to slam the midfielder, completely ignoring the fact that he made two identical challenges earlier in the game, which the referee deemed fair, waving play on despite Everton protests - and in each case he broke up dangerous Everton attacks.

Now I accept that any challenge from behind runs the risk of conceding a free kick, and that it also carries with it the risk of a caution, so on that basis Noble was unwise to dive in, but what was he meant to do, let Barkley run unchallenged into the box with Everton players up in support? By this stage of the game, we were chasing shadows, the players exhausted by the pressing tactics employed from the first minute. Noble's challenge was, quite simply, a challenge born of desperation.

But Noble's critics don't care about context. They will not remember the earlier challenges nor the completed passes, all they will recall is that dreadful free kick straight through to Howard and the red carded "foul".  It is a disgraceful way to treat a product of the Academy and if these so called fans are not careful, they will drive him out, just as Lampard would have been hounded out had not his father and uncle defended him against all the unfounded and spiteful criticism of a vindictive boo boy section in our fan base.

I am on Maiga's case at the moment, but I would love him to prove me wrong, because I care more about the club than about my own ego. I am genuinely wondering if that is true of those who delight in their Noble vendetta.

West Ham 2 Everton 3 - Relegation struggle confirmed

OK, the excuses will be made. Did Noble connect with the ball before he was sent off? Probably yes. Should he have been sent off therefore, even if a foul was awarded? Probably no. Did he even deserve the first yellow for the tug on Mirallis? Some referees would have considered the free kick punishment enough, especially given the fact that Reid cleared the ball anyway.

However, moan as much as we like, we lost because Everton played us off the park in the second half and Noble ended up with an early bath because we were chasing shadows throughout that second period.

So, the West Ham fans who took issue with my warning about relegation, made as soon as Carroll's injury was confirmed and we failed to buy a replacement, might now like to think again. True Petric came on and made an instant impression by chasing a lost cause and setting up Nolan for the penalty award, but it is unlikely he will be fit and available for every game, and Maiga, once again, looked out of his depth. In fact, depth is the key word because when you bring on Taylor to protect a lead in the Prem, you admit that your squad is paper thin.

That second half was every bit as depressing as our performance against Stoke. As soon as Collins fouled Barkley within Baines shooting range, you knew Everton would equalise. Jussi's positioning was awful, but with Baines going for the opposite corner for his second, you can understand the Finn's muddled thinking. Of course, the solution was obvious, to put a tall man on the unprotected post, but you need players with brains to work that out, or a manager that thinks outside the box, which Allardyce doesn't.

Once Noble was dismissed, the game was up, but we were lucky to lead because the only objective in the second half was to protect what we had. Petric did brilliantly to win the ball on the dead ball line and play it back to Nolan, and Nolan bought the penalty like the old pro he is, but we offered absolutely nothing going forward apart from that in the second period. And the midfield were clearly shattered 60 minutes into the game because of the pressing tactics. Everton simply bided their time and then passed the ball through the gaps that inevitably appeared.

Meanwhile, Lukaku showed what we missed as Sullivan and Gold fiddled as Upton Park burned. Financial Fair Play? Cobblers. We were just trying to save on wages for a few weeks, and because of Carroll's injury, it exploded in our faces. Also, of course, Allardyce's one dimensional Plan A policy of the lone striker meant that Lukaku didn't fancy keeping the bench warm, waiting for Carroll to pull up lame.

So, the relegation struggle was confirmed today. It's going to be a long, difficult, painful season and God only knows the implications to the club if we go down.

Player ratings: Jussi 4; O'Brien 5 Collins 6, Reid 8, Rat 6; Noble 5, Morrison 5; Jarvis 5, Nolan 5, Diame 6; Maiga 4 Subs Petric 6, Taylor 5

Half Time: West Ham 1 Everton 0 - Morrison!!!!!!!!

Ok, it took a huge deflection, without which the ball would not have found the back of the net, but who cares? Ravel is off the mark, West Ham have scored and, thus far, the roses are sweet smelling.

We haven't looked particularly good with the ball again, but we have looked far better than against Stoke. Maiga has won three headers and has actually found a team mate with a few passes. He's also had a shot which, sadly, sailed well over the goal. But beggars can't be choosers, that's a marked improvement!

Again, the defending in midfield and at the back has been tigerish, and one Jussi save apart for Marallis, we have coped excellently without the ball. The trouble, Everton have been poor, in part thanks to our pressing game, and are likely to improve markedly in the second 45. Poor O'Brien has his hands full with Baines and Marallis and if Lukaku comes on, Collins and Reid will know they are in a game. Morrison has to be careful too after a first half yellow for a rash challenge.

Fingers crossed, but we have led against Everton quite a few times before, only to lose the game!

Everton trembling as Maiga leads the line again!

So, despite looking as toothless at Southampton as a ninety five year old who has just gone ten rounds with Floyd Mayweather, the only change to the team is enforced, with Rat coming in for Demel. Everton's defenders must be quaking in their boots at the thought of trying to shut out Maiga and co for ninety minutes!

And this is Everton remember, a team who we can't beat even when we are at full strength and on the top of our game! If I could bring myself to bet against West Ham, this would be the game I would select. If the Toffees don't win this one, I will be very pleasantly surprised!

Allardyce clearly hasn't hit upon a plan B yet. Hopes that Vaz Te might start along with young Lee have been dashed. Forget movement, forget angled balls, forget subtlety, it seems we intend to pump it forward regardless of the fact that we are pumping it forward to nobody!

Still, Maiga may surprise us! Finger crossed. The Everton hoodoo may be laid with a Maiga hat trick. And look, there's a squadron of pigs flying over Upton Park as the pre match entertainment!

How brainless is Maiga?

Right on cue, Captain Kev has made a statement in support of West Ham's strikers and Maiga in particular. Nolan insists Maiga can and will score but Nolan is missing the point, just as Maiga misses the target. It's not the guy's ability that's the problem, it's his footballing intelligence. When it comes to understanding the nuances of the game, the guy is literally brainless.

Just watch his movement, or rather lack of movement, when he doesn't have the ball. There was one really telling moment shortly before he was taken off against Southampton.

Noble was in possession on the half way line and was desperately looking for the opportunity to play the ball forward. He looked up and Maiga was absolutely static with a Southampton defender up his backside. Noble waited and waited. Would Maiga spin and run, making either the ball over the top or down the channel possible, or would he drop deep, setting up a one two?

The answer was neither. He stood still. So poor Noble told him what to do, inviting him to drop into the space by beckoning him forwards, before playing the pass. Maiga responded, but the defender came with him, inevitably given Noble's frustrated hand gesture, and Maiga promptly made a hash of receiving the pass, played directly to his feet, and allowed the ball to bounce off his legs to the feet of an opponent - and suddenly we were back peddling as Southampton poured forward. Hopeless!

Did Maiga win one header all game? Yes. But he back headed it straight to a Southampton defender with no West Ham player goal side of him. Did he have a single shot on target? No. Did he have one authentic shot off target? No, his only attempt ballooned off his leg with his body shape all over the shop. Did he once run a channel? Nope. Did he drop deep to link the play? Nope. Did he attempt to stretch the Southampton defence by running beyond their back line? Nope.  Did he do anything? No. Well actually, that's not fair.

There was one classic moment that showed how incompetent this guy is. Remember when Southampton hit the post? Well Maiga was guarding that post and failed to jump as the ball passed over his head. Fair enough, it was traveling at quite a lick, but it is what happened afterwards that is the concern. The ball rebounded into play and pinged around our penalty box; and what did Maiga do? He actually stepped outside the post, leaving the goal unguarded and screened the fans behind the goal should a Southampton player strike his shot wide.

Now that was truly brainless!

Furious Allardyce Blames Referee Marriner

Funny, I thought Allardyce set up to draw the game, so it seems a bit rich for him to be pointing the finger at referee Andre Marriner for our failure to score and take home 3 points. Listen to Doctor Evil and you would think we were somehow robbed. And the reason? Because Schneiderlin wasn't sent off when he scythed through Diame.

Now I always consider it a tad desperate when a manager uses the excuse for the failure to get a result that the opposition had the same number of players on the pitch. But in this case, I think Allardyce may have a point, even though O'Brien might have seen red for a similar tackle. After all, by selecting Maiga to start, Allardyce handed a one man advantage to Southampton, so had Marriner sent off Schneiderlin, he would  simply have been levelling things up by making it ten men against ten!

For the record, here's what Doctor Evil had to say after the game:

"I can't for the life of me understand Andre Marriner. He is such an experienced referee now, how he didn't see that."

"For me that was a disappointment. It's in the end kept them with 11 men on the field, which the law was supposed to be they should only have had 10 men, which would have given us a better chance of winning because I started the game with 10 anyway."

"But I'm happy with a point. I can't affect what the referees do, it's not my job, it's just my job to build a squad that can cope with injuries and to evolve tactics which enable us to score when the opposition have eleven men on the pitch in case the referee doesn't send one of them off."

"Of course I did my job brilliantly, as ever, because we could have won it at the end when that Ginger twat had his chance but he let me down just like he let the people of Wales down in mid week - that was the best chance of game".

"It was a bit unlucky for me and my superb tactics that it fell to our centre half, but from that far out even a Welsh ginger twat should hit the target."

"Overall, it was a decent performance. Defensively we showed how good we are but we can't hit the back of the net. That's my concern at the moment. But had Marriner done his job and reduced them to ten men, we might have had half a chance of winning."

Southampton's Saints 0 Cynical Sinners 0 - a Snore Draw!

Allardyce will be pleased but if every game was played like this, football would be dead as a spectator sport inside twelve months. Doctor Evil has the perfect excuse, of course - no Carroll, no Downing and no Cole - but he put this squad together and with the route one totem removed, we have no idea how to score.

True Diame forced a great save in the first five minutes and true we had a goal disallowed after Jarvis mistimed his run and so was caught offside, and true Collins blasted over when unmarked in the box after a superb pull back by Noble, but those moments apart, we had all the attacking intent of a pacifist convention in Switzerland. There was one game plan, and one game plan only, to keep Southampton out and hope upon hope that a scrap might fall to Nolan which he would take. Two did fall to him, but he made a hash of both.

The decision to play Diame out wide was a defensive ploy to nullify Shaw's forward runs and, outside of Noble and Morrison, we had nobody looking to create. Jarvis was hopeless with the ball all afternoon, Maiga was completely and utterly anonymous, Nolan did what Nolan does (without the vital finishing bit), Diame lumped every cross twenty yards over the head of everybody in the box and Vaz Te looked as hungry as a corpse when he replaced Mogadon Maiga. It really was a dire spectacle when we were in possession.

Without the ball, we were, for the most part, superb. The midfield pressed, harried, bit, spat, elbowed, nudged, rolled and fouled their way through the game, effectively suffocating Southampton's short passing game. At the back, a couple of gaffs apart in the first half, Collins was at his belligerent best and Reid again impressed. O'Brien picked up a stupid yellow high up the pitch with an ugly and unnecessary challenge but otherwise was excellent on both the right and left flank, and Demel was a beast until he went off injured. On came the appropriately named Rat who fitted in neatly.

The trouble is, we were hungry for the ball when the opposition had it and utterly clueless when they occasionally gave it to us. We can't survive drawing the remaining games 0-0 so something has to be done to make us more effective going forward and given the personnel problems, Allardyce might have to find a Plan B. An Allardyce Plan B, now there's an oxymoron!

By the way, Jussi was truly brilliant, with two utterly awesome saves and two others worthy of mention!

Player ratings: Jussi 10; Demel 6, Collins 7, Reid 8, O'Brien 7; Noble 8, Morrison 6; Diame 5, Nolan 6, Jarvis 5; Mogadon Maiga 0 Subs: Rat 7, Vaz Te 2, Taylor 5

Half Time Southampton 0 West Ham 0 - Not bad for 10 men!

Ok, it again hasn't been terribly pretty but it hasn't all been long ball either. What would be the point when Maiga is the lone man up front and he has been as useless as ever.

We really are playing with 10 men at the moment and I can't believe that either Vaz Te or Nolan as the target man could be as bad. Maiga's half was summed up when the ball fell to him in the box in the final minute and he failed to control it, failed to shape his body, failed to get a proper connection and provoked jeers of derision as the ball floated behind for a goal kick like a balloon. Hopeless, truly, truly hopeless.

Mind you, Maiga's not alone in having a bit of a mare. Allardyce will be laying in to Jarvis after the dipstick has made a complete hash of his crossing and mistimed a run which resulted in a goal being disallowed because he was a fraction off side. Like Maiga, he is not a very intelligent footballer.

And at the back, Collins has been shaky, sliding on his arse once and so allowing a Southampton break, and losing possession horribly when the final defender. Fortunately Rodrigeuz failed to control the ball.

And generally speaking our crossing from the flanks has been poor, with only O'Brien keeping his head when in space. I'm wondering if Allardyce had had them practising with a sodden old leather ball because it is frightening how many times crosses and long balls have been overhit.

On the positive side, Jussi pulled off a brilliant save, Diame forced an equally good save, the tackling has been tigerish, we have had the ball in the net and Morrison very nearly curled one into the top corner from outside the box. The worry is, should Southampton score, who the hell, apart maybe from Nolan or Morrison, is going to score for us? This team is terrifyingly light on goal scorers.

West Ham risk points deduction as Sullivan flouts the rules

So that's it then. Having surrendered five points in our one club quest to stay the right side of the Financial Fair Play rules, David Sullivan has suddenly decided to face up to the wrath of the footballing authorities rather than trust to the possibility that, sometime this side of never, Maiga might learn that those funny white posts with a net attached is called a goal.

Of course, should we narrowly avoid the drop, we can expect a disciplinary hearing and calls to financially compensate any team that goes down in our stead. Crystal Palace have probably appointed a team of lawyers already, and the first team that Petric scores against will instantly put together a case proving that the former Fulham man was a one man team. Well, he's already proved himself a better keeper than Rob Green if you believe some reports!

Neil Warnock is probably touting himself as a consultant and expert witness as you read this whilst Shafting United's McScab is no doubt investigating the possibility of a "piggy back" claim, asking for a retrospective review of the Tevez case in the light of proof that the London club are a bunch of cheating East End shysters. Every player in the Prem, meanwhile, is asking his agent to seek legal advice on making a claim for a personal loss.

Meanwhile Scotty Duxbury will probably offer his services to the club in an effort to mitigate losses, persuading the Board to accept a deduction of 18 points, a fine somewhere in the range of £30m to £60m, and compensation deals, to avoid costly legal actions, amounting to £700m.

No wonder we didn't try to sign a striker before the window closed!

And I thought Sullivan & Gold were supposedly West Ham fans!

Sullivan and Gold are West Ham fans? Don't make me laugh! All West Ham fans know from painful experience one, absolute, unalterable, never to be refuted or denied or challenged law: if it can go wrong, it bloody well will go wrong, and with fcuking great knobs on!

So, we break our transfer record and buy a guy whose thighs are wrapped up in more bandages than your average Egyptian mummy and we all know what's going to happen next - his career is going to end cruelly and prematurely. Hello Dean Ashton.

And, we get taken over by an Icelandic bank so it's welcome to the collapse of the world banking system!

And we sign two World Class Argies -  so suddenly Third Party Agreements raise their ugly heads!

And Pardew takes us to a Cup Final and to the top ten of the Prem in our first season back up - so his flies break!

And we appoint a manager who has taken a club to the Champions League final - but it's Avram Grant!

And we sign Keiron Dyer so...oh no, that curse hit every one of his clubs equally!

West Ham fans know that you never, ever, ever, back yourself in to a blind alley with only one way out, because if you do, before you know it, that exit way will be blocked by a pride of lions, a herd of rhinos and Jo Brand in stockings and suspenders.

So Carroll is out for the season. Is anybody other than our chairmen really surprised?

Carroll injury exposes the grand folly of Sullivan, Gold and Princess Brady

So that's it then, Carroll has sustained another injury and is beginning to bear all the hallmarks of another Dean Ashton or Keiron Dyer. But at least when those two inaction men booked in to their favourite treatment suite, the club had somebody to fill their shirts. Not so this time.

Amazingly, or should I say typically, West Ham fans have been slow to condemn the brinkmanship which saw us look around dazed and confused until the final hours of the transfer window, before making a belated bid to sign three, by that stage, unlikely targets. Perhaps it took the Stoke game to wake the Board up. And perhaps the very real prospect of a relegation battle alerted them to the fact that a vague threat of a points deduction was as of nothing, compared to a second dose of financial Armageddon in the Championship; but somehow the Financial Fair Play rules became, at the very last moment, less of an insurmountable obstacle.

Why, oh, why, oh why did we buy Downing rather than prioritizing a striker? What folly! Why, oh why, oh why did we let Norwich and Sunderland and Tottenham build new teams whilst we muttered on about new rules which are not tested for the first time until May 2015? What folly!

West Ham fans scoffed over the weekend and last week when I suggested we were now in danger of relegation, but tell me, how are we going to win games if we can't score goals? I can only see one option at the moment, and that is to move Captain Kev up top because Maiga is shit.

The latest rumour is that we are bringing in Petric. Well he hasn't got a club and we seem to be hoovering up any scraps on offer. A great signing methinks, he didn't net a single goal for Fulham post Christmas and from Easter on, Fulham showed relegation form.

But we won a friendly in Spain! Yep, with a Noble penalty.

It's threatening to be one nightmare of a season!

Leave it late and you get what you deserve - sweet FA!

So the truth is out! Far from sitting on their dildos, messers Sullivan, Gold and Brady were moving heaven and earth on the last day of the window trying to sign a striker. Ba, Lukaku and Bendtner were all on the shopping list, but sadly all three deals fell at the final hurdle.

Two questions arise from this, of course. The first is, why did we wait until the last moment before making a move? It was obvious to everybody that we needed an understudy for Carroll and that Maiga wasn't up to the job, so why, oh why, oh why did we dilly and dally, dally and dilly and lose our way at home to Stoke?

And the second is, what exactly happened to the Financial Fair Play regulations on the final day of the window which supposedly meant that we couldn't sign anybody until a player was sold? As I said all along, that was obviously bollocks. Unless Princess Brady is telling porkies now.

So, we got exactly what we deserved. Sweet FA. And if relegation is the consequence then we know who to blame.

Saint Carlton agrees to play for nothing

So when is the guy going to be canonized? Such is Carlton's love for the club that he is happy to play for nothing.

How else can we explain the club's attempt to re-sign him? According to the line spun by Big Brother Sullivan, and swallowed by the opened mouthed chicks in the Claret and Blue nest, we couldn't sign another striker until somebody left because of a limit on our wage bill. Well nobody has left so, ergo, the only way we can recruit Carlton Goals is if he has agreed to play for nothing, or next to nothing if we are to credit Sullivan's statement with an iota of truth.

Of course, it was all cobblers from the outset. I said two weeks back that West Ham fans were being taken for mugs and cited Spurs and Sunderland in evidence. The Claret and Blue Klan predictably howled in protest, just as they howled at the suggestion that The Great Puppet Master Duxbury was spinning them a line when he waxed lyrical about the "Project" even as he sold Bellamy and Collins. But these fools can't see the writing on the wall, or on the side of a van even as the Knacker arrives to take the faithful Boxer away.

Captain Kev has been wheeled out to pledge support for want away RVT and if Carlton signs, some bollocks will be released about how, after looking at all the alternatives, he was the best option available. But Carlton can't score and Everton and Cardiff both signed strikers at the end of the window with a proven record in the Prem. We have been betrayed and the management will be hugely culpable if their penny pinching gamble explodes in their face.

What was it that Benjamin said as Boxer was taken away by the butcher? "Fools, fools, fools! Can't you see what's written on the side of that van?" Well as Carlton is brought BACK from the knackers, let's hope to God it doesn't say relegation!

West Ham operating on wingers and a prayer!

What a joke, but, to quote The Smiths, that joke ain't funny anymore, it's too close to home and too near the bone!

The window has closed and unless transfer papers have been couriered in secret, Sullivan, Gold & Allardyce haves decided that plan B really is one plan too many. We have Andy Carroll, so why do we need anybody else?

True Carroll is injury prone. True we have lost 5 points already because we have nobody to play up top when Carroll is injured. And true Carroll tends to have barren spells even when playing. But none of that is a problem, it seems.

Who needs a striker? Who needs goals? We have Downing and Jarvis to pump the ball into the box, and the stats say that if you get the ball in the opposition box enough times in a game, you are bound to score. I mean, eventually, an opponent with nobody to mark will put the ball in his own bloody net!

This is mismanagement on a monumental scale. It threatens to be a long depressing season. And if we go down, Sullivan will get exactly what he deserves!

Allardyce calls for Tottenham Hotspur and Sunderland to be deducted points

Interesting. Backed into a bit of a corner in the post match Talk Bollocks interview, Allardyce repeated the myth that West Ham cannot buy without selling because of the new financial regulations for clubs in the Prem. A slightly intimidated interviewer had the audacity, like this blog, to raise the issue of Spurs and Sunderland, and Allardyce replied that it was down to the authorities to act.

Of course, he knows they won't. He knows the first checkpoint isn't until February of 2015, a date deliberately chosen to allow this and three further windows to slam shut, and he knows that the penalties have not even been specified and, legally, the "football authorities" wouldn't have a leg to stand on if they tried to retrospectively impose a penalty which hadn't been clarified at the time of the offence.

So, irrespective of the sale of Bale - which wasn't guaranteed when Spurs splurged the cash - we all know that Tottenham must have broken the salary rule. You're not going to tell me that the wages of those sold will cover those of the foreign legion brought in! And as for Sunderland, Di Canio has recruited 11 so far and is looking for more!

West Ham fans have been taken for mugs. We have surrendered five points anyway by not bringing in a half decent striker and suddenly a relegation battle looms because we are short of target after that defeat at home to Stoke and 4 points shy of what we got from the equivalent fixtures last season. But how many of the Claret and Blue Klan swallowed the propaganda of Sullivan just as they lapped up the warm milky words of The Grand Puppet Master Duxbury?

I wish I had been conducting that interview! My follow up question would have been, "So if there is any truth in this financial rules cobblers, why the fcuk did you spend the precious budget on Downing? Dead leg? How about dead brain, dead desire and dead ability?"