West Ham Till I Die
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The HamburgHammer Column

Cup, Spuds and going aboard the Battle Cruiser

Solid. Sturdy. Safe (Just about). Another 0:0 draw, against very decent opposition again, this time away from home.
Another vital point won by another makeshift starting eleven.
(It is a fact that not once this season we have been able to field our strongest XI. And we also won’t be able to do so this season with Antonio now out until summer.)

It was one of the more entertaining goalless draws, yet I probably won’t be buying the DVD of the match, should it ever become available in the club shop.
Yet again it was a very decent team effort, Adrian pretty much cemented his place in the side with a string of fine saves, our defenders appear to be developing a nice bit of understanding between each other, Masuaku delivered another MOTM worthy performance which only lasted one half though, but having him at LB already bodes well for next season. And Nordtveit helped us to register a third clean sheet in the three games where he started in his prefered position as holding midfielder.

We had some fantastic goalscoring opportunities (oh, how I wish that bicycle kick from Ayew after Masuaku’s cross had found the target!), but wasted them all, once again highlighting the need to give our striking department a good old overhaul in the summer. Calleri trying to score with a rabona when he probably had ten different alternatives at his disposal with greater chance of resulting in a winning goal, drove me nuts.

I really tried to find positives for Calleri, a reason to somehow warrant West Ham trying to sign him on a permanent deal, but frankly he didn’t give me much ammunition for his cause on Saturday. Yes, he runs a lot and puts himself about. But when it comes to that final decision, the end product, the main thing to judge a striker’s ability on, he falls short.

Maybe he just isn’t suited to the Premier League, but his decision making looks way off. I don’t see that striker’s instinct in him to put the ball over the line at all costs.
Scoring with a rabona of course is the very rare icing for a cake for any footballer, but in order to do that you need some cake to begin with.

A striker needs to score, it can be a screamer drilled into the top corner (prefered of course) , but also simple tap ins will do, or guiding the ball into the corner from short distance. Maybe Calleri needs even more games to adapt, maybe he lacks confidence, but he seems to have a tendency to go for the wondergoal, the complicated stuff, rather than trying to go for the end product first and foremost.

Talking of striker overhauls God knows what is up with Sakho (again). Is it another knock that kept him out of the Stoke game ? Just a little one or rather a bad reoccurrence of the back injury that was supposed to have been fixed with that recent operation of his ? Or is it indeed a question of attitude that Sakho isn’t willing to accept a place on the bench under no circumstance whatsoever ? In that case he can do one as far as I’m concerned. AS much as I may like a player for his skills and determination on the pitch I still like my West Ham players to be team players, guys who look at what’s best for the overall good of the team.

Every player wants to play, that’s understandable. But sometimes a manager is right to make a decision and put certain players on the bench, either for tactical reasons or because they are still in the process of returning from injury. As for Andy Carroll, well, his groin seem to belong to a 50 year old rather than a professional athlete. Maybe he is not suited to a sport that requires him to play 38 games a season. Maybe he is more suited to playing Cricket. American Football has a short season too, but thinking of Andy Carroll playing just 15 minutes as a Wide Receiver in the NFL makes me shudder with horror.

After being hit with the first crunching downfield tackle he’d probably break bones and pull muscles he never even knew he had. In short: I feel we need a complete overhaul upfront. Get rid of Carroll, Sakho and Calleri and bring in three more reliable options.

One of those could be Defoe. He is not exactly in the right age bracket of course, but he apparently has unfinished business at our club and a point to prove.
Plus he would arrive on a free (which should please the board) and if he can play another one or two seasons for us I’d be happy with that as long as we also sign two more strikers under the age of 30. But hopefully guys who have a decent injury record instead of season tickets at various doctors and physiotherapists.

Just briefly on last week’s raid on our club offices at London Stadium. I suppose things will become clearer soon what that was all about. Indications are that West Ham won’t be the main focus of the HMRC investigations, indeed that it’s more about dodgy agents and French clubs being naughty in terms of tax avoidance.
I hope for our collective sake that we are clean as a new penny in this case as for far too long West Ham have been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Our owners have a great responsibility and also the power (at least to a degree) to create better headlines for our club over the summer.

I can’t say I’m overly optimistic they will will deliver, you won’t be surprised to hear that. But once more I shall be giving them, maybe foolishly on my part, the benefit of the doubt.

Doubt is something my lads at Concordia cannot afford this week. It’s Cup Day on Wednesday! The stupid local football authorities (aided by this obnoxious old football hating lady living next to Concordia’s ground) have determined that kickoff will be at 5:30 pm which is a shame as a lot of people won’t be able to make the game in time, not for kickoff anyway.
To remind you again, it’s the semifinal of the so called Oddset Cup against Norderstedt, a team playing one level above Concordia.

The winner of the Oddset Cup will go into the first round draw of the German equivalent of the FA Cup and once in the draw every small team (like Concordia) harbours dreams of finding a Golden Ticket by playing one of the big boys, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Moenchengladbach or Eintracht Frankfurt. Instead of playing in front of 258 fans you’d suddenly be able to move to a bigger ground and attract a crowd of thousands. But first we need the win against Norderstedt and I would expect a crowd of probably 1.000 fans which is about as close to full capacity as you can get at Cordi.

One side note, talking of crowds and full capacity: As you know one of my weirder visions is of Concordia one fine day playing West Ham in a preseason friendly (as West Ham sometimes do like to come to Germany for that kind of fixture). Initially I had thought this was a giant pie in the sky. But then on Friday evening (after the 2:0 away win at Barmbek) I had a little chat about that crazy thought with both the club president of Concordia and the press spokesman over a beer or two.

They were both intrigued by the idea and said the proposal did not only appeal to them but was also actually doable. I would obviously need someone with links to the relevant decision makers at the club (maybe Sean Whetstone can assist in that respect) to open a channel of communication in this matter, but I understand that West Ham do play lower league opposition in preseason fixtures from time to time.

Concordia couldn’t host a game like that at their home ground, it’s too small for that kind of fixture and couldn’t be policed properly.

But the club president assured me that, planned well in advance, a sufficient number of stewards and police staff could be organised and depending on how many West Ham fans might be expected to travel, the game could either be played at the Victoria Stadium (artificial pitch, capacity 5.000, both sitting and standing) or even St.Pauli’s Millerntor Stadium which holds just under 30.000, again both sitting and standing.

I know you have to be a bit bonkers in the first place to turn this dream into a reality, but why not ? It doesn’t have to be this summer. It can be in 2018, but it can be done if both clubs were willing to give it a go. I know West Ham played Hamburg SV in a preseason friendly in Flensburg a few years ago (I was there). I am aware there could be the usual issues about hooligans from both sides (maybe even those from other Hamburg based clubs) trying to spoil things for the proper football fans.

But I still like the idea of a game that’d be just a little bit different. West Ham playing Hamburg SV or St.Pauli would be the more obvious, the mainstream options as it were. Thinking outside the box though it could make sense. Or am I being hopelessly optimistic here ?

Only a few days left now before I fly over to London again, for my first ever derby against Spurs. I shall be there for the whole weekend, only flying back to Hamburg the Monday after (late afternoon), I have no idea yet how this weekend is going to shape up or who I will meet or what I’ll do apart from attending the Spurs game.

However, I’m confident that the WHTID crew (including the clique…:-)) won’t let me down in that respect! Let’s hit the old battle cruiser for a beverage or two! COYI !!!

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