Clattenburg suspended

Back in October last year I posted about Mr Clatterburg's appalling performance in the Merseyside derby. Now the guy has been suspended because his company has gone bust. Now I'm not saying there is a link between the two, but if I was the FA, I would be looking very closely at when the company hit problems and asking if it really was pornography wrapped up in that brown paper bag Clattenburg was allegedly seen carrying on the train out of Liverpool. Think I might rename him Clattenbung, just for fun you understand!

Wouldn't it be great if...?

Wouldn't it be great if Curbishley were to issue the following statement? "I woke up this morning and was struck by this incredible thought, I'm the manager of West Ham United. Yes,that's right, West Ham United! I'm no longer the Charlton manager! I don't have to bore my way to crucial points, I can send the team out to attack, in the true West Ham style. I want to apologise to all you great fans for last season. Yes we had injuries, yes we were consolidating, but that is not a good enough excuse for abandoning the values of OUR great club. This club isn't just about survival, this team is about maintaining standards, about values, about a heritage based on Greenwood, Moore, Hurst and Peters. We won the World Cup for England and we will win the World Cup again, because we put the good of the game above our own petty need for points against cloggers like Blackburn. Thatcher? What was I thinking of? Barton? Ron Greenwood would turn in his grave. So I now give you all this pledge. I know I fell short as a player, I know I put myself before the club, I know I walked out on West Ham then and put personal glory ahead of this great club, but I am breaking with that past now, I don't want a team of Curbishleys, I want a team of Brookings and Devonshires, I want to attack, I want to play with a smile rather than a grimace, I want West Ham to be West Ham, and to hell with the consequences!"

Dyer's masterplan!

"A former Manchester United player whose career was ended when he was injured in a tackle has been awarded more than £4.5m in compensation." Is this the Dyer masterplan?

West Ham to sign Andy Murray!

West Ham have just announced the signing of tennis ace Andy Murray. Manager Alan Curbishley explained, "As his performance in the Olympics showed, Murray is a mercenary b8stard who doesn't give a toss about the team if there isn't a big pay cheque for winning. Doesn't that sound like all my other signings? Andy is also injured on a regular basis and regularly flatters to deceive. He will fit in with the present squad perfectly! All I have to do now is to iron the attacking shots out of his game to make him the perfect Curbishley player!" Tottenham, meanwhile, have signed Nadal!

Curbishley, the Master of Mediocrity

Curbishley is a master for mediocrity. It is like having a batsman in cricket, as Tavare used to be, who can "hold up an end" whilst others score the runs around him. Tavare was never going to be a Botham, never going to be a winner on his own, but still had his value. But like Tavare, Curbishley doesn't have what it takes to be a winner or to get the crowd excited. To stick with cricket terminology, he doesn't "go for his shots". He is a nudger and a nurdler, a grafter who scores by saying, "you'll not get me out and if I stick around, you'll chuck down enough bad balls for me to accumulate a decent score." That's all very well if that is what you want, but a team of Tavares would be awfully boring to watch, just like Curbishley's teams. The trouble with West Ham teams in the past has been that all the players, even the defenders, have had the Botham attitude. Every team, ideally, has a Tavare, and I give Curbishley credit for instilling discipline into the defenders, Neill apart. But we want to see flair, we want to see our team pouring forward, we want to see invention, creativity, risk taking, we want to see exciting, attacking football. Tavare was never going to go for his shots in cricket and nor will Curbishley in football. Yes he was ideal for Charlton where expectations were lower, but he is wrong for West Ham. I'm not saying we expect to win things, what I'm saying is that we expect to be entertained when not winning things. George Graham might have been acceptable because he might have won trophies whilst abandoning our values, but Curbishley is the worst of both worlds; he will nurdle us to mid table obscurity and I would rather finish 14th by playing our shots than 10th by nudging and nurdling all season! One thing is for certain, Curbishley isn't going to change his mentality after all these "successful" years so if we want flair we need a new manager.