Fortune always hiding? or is there more to it...

I am going to use todays blog entry to dispell what the pundits will have you believe is football's biggest mystery. What is going wrong at West Ham? I hope you are sitting down because this is shocking... they just aren’t that good.

The cliche’ for the past couple of seasons has been that West Ham have got a quality spine to their team with Green, Upson, Parker and Cole. I disagree. 

I have never been a fan of Upson and find the fact he has 21 England caps pretty embarrassing. Carlton Cole has got the physical tools to score goals in the Premier League but he is the kind of striker that will take 3 or 4 chances to score a goal and is largely inconsistent. He needs a quality strike partner because he won't score enough goals to keep a team up on his own.

As for Parker, I can't help but think there has been a lot of undue hype in recent weeks. Parker is good by association with the mediocre players he has to play with every week but not much more. He does produce moments of quality (his volleyed lob over Petr Cech earlier this season is surely a candidate for goal of the season) and I can see why West Ham look to him for leadership however, in the grand scheme of things he is just a run of the mill combative Premier League midfielder who runs about a lot and puts in tackles.

Be that as it may, the bigger issue is the mediocre players they are surrounded with and this needs to be addressed in the transfer window if West Ham are to stay up.

Einstein once said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, by that definition West Ham must be certifiable. West Ham narrowly avoided relegation last year and nothing has changed but the manager. The situation the Hammers find themselves in has been coming for a while now. The signings of Piquionne and Ben Haim aren't not enough to stop the rot in anyones wildest dreams. Don't be fooled by their win against a toothless Fulham today. Only one side in Premiership history has avoided relegation after being bottom at christmas and without major investment in January I don’t see how West Ham can buck that trend.

Merry Christmas and hopefully my next entry will be a more positive one.

Man City miss out on christmas number one...

As Man City squandered their chance last night to top the table at christmas for the first time since 1929 I began to ponder what went wrong for City. When Mark Hughes was in charge he said he wanted to build a team with an English spine and established premier league players who would battle their way to the title on a cold night. His audacious bid to sign then England captain John Terry embodied this. Unfortunately for City fans it was a quality severely lacking at the City of Manchester Stadium last night.

As a manager with limited experience in English football Roberto Mancini seems to have largely taken the opposite approach when putting his mark on the side over the summer which could cost them a run at the title.  

Whilst Nigel De Jong’s suspension undoubtedly took some much needed steel out of the City midfield, over priced foreign imports such as Kolarov, Silva and Balotelli don’t appear to have the stomach for the physical style of the English game. Whilst I don’t question Balotelli’s potential he is yet to show the temperament to deal with the treatment he will undoubtedly receive in the premier league. 

However, for a great example the City side need look no further than the architect of their downfall last night, Tim Cahill. The Australian was head and shoulders above anything on the pitch at COMS (apart from the equally impressive Tim Howard) and his willingness to work for the team was only outshone by his goal and assist on the night.

City are far from out of the race for the title. The Blues are in a great position and  have countless options in their squad to change things around.  Nonetheless, the foreign imports will need to start producing when it really matters and Carlos Tevez will have to put this weeks transfer saga behind him. The Argentinian, who is usually full of running, looked far from his usual self against Everton.