Sorry all for starting off topic, but for the first time in a long time I couldn’t be arsed to watch a football game last weekend despite both Concordia teams actually playing games. I was watching events of the G20 summit in my beloved hometown unfolding on my telly from the safety of my flat and what I saw made me feel sick, angry, sad, confused and left me shaking my head in disbelief.
I’m not even talking about the leaders of the world exchanging a lot of hot air for two days or listening to a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in our new posh concert hall which cost just over 866 million Euros all in all which is slightly more I believe than what was spent on the OS including the costs for conversion into what is still very much an athletics stadium first and a football ground in a very distant second place.
I’m also not talking about those people out on the streets of Hamburg who were expressing their opinion on the state of the world, global trade and the environment in a peaceful manner. However, unfortunately it was obvious from as early as Thursday that the demolition tourists were very eager to claim the spotlight for themselves and their cat and mouse “games” with the police on this occasion.
We saw numerous windows getting smashed, shops being looted and demolished, barricades and cars burning away and even sinister ploys to lure the police into the trap of a narrow side street in order to then attack them from above, firing at the Old Bill with slingshots and steel bullets, but also stones and flagpoles.
We saw locals being denied entry to their homes for hours because the streets were blocked from fighting activists/thugs. While others were trapped in their rooms, scared stiff, expecting a cobblestone to land in their kitchen at any second or even worse a richochet Molotov cocktail.
Of course London has seen its share of similar troubles in recent years, but no city should be subjected to mindless acts of vandalism and violence like this, no matter if it’s Hamburg or Hackney. The weekend’s events in my beloved city put West Ham pretty much at the back of my mind for once and it wasn’t until later on Sunday, once things had started to settle down again, that I was in a state again to read up about the recent rumours surrounding our club.
So, Iheanacho won’t be coming to West Ham then after all. Why not ? Well, it depends on which story you’re prepared to believe. Did Bilic really pull the plug at the last second because he simply wasn’t convinced the player would be worth a £25 million deal with a buyback clause ?
Did former teammate Zabaleta warn against signing Iheanacho ?
Were the owners unwilling to spend that kind of money on a player who could leave the club again after a year or two for only a small profit ? Or did maybe the player himself not really fancy us that much after all, prefering to go to Leicester instead ?
Who knows ? It’s one more target we can strike off the list. And he won’t be the last.
One player we seem to be closing in on is Andre Gray, a former Championship player of the year in 2016, winning the Golden Boot award in the same season.
So the lad knows where the net is and he can play a bit of football. A natural finisher he is too. But he also had a bit of a chequered past. Born into a difficult family background he had to take responsibility while still being young himself. He still carries a scar on his cheek to forever remind him of his days mixing with the wrong people during his days of gang-related fighting in his hometown of Wolverhampton.
There were homophobic and racial tweets which got Gray into further trouble, but he seems to have matured a bit since then, at least off the pitch. On it there are still question marks over his overall contribution to the team other than scoring goals. He doesn’t seem to like tracking back or tackling – also his passing is not exactly a strong point, in fact he doesn’t seem to be good at anything else but scoring some goals and converting some penalty shots. Plus, he’s an Arsenal fan too.
Still we’d have to pay £13 million for a player like him in 2017. Just a few years ago that would have very much constituted a marquee, a club record signing for us. As it is he looks like a halfway decent player currently plying his trade at Burnley, not a world beater, but still a £13 million player in today’s market. That shows where the problem for our board lies.
They want to dance with the big boys at the next level ballroom, they are already boasting about selling more than 50.000 season tickets and having this wonderful giant digital screen, all of this pointing toward a club really going places, ready to conquer the world, quite literally. Yet they are not prepared to pay what is needed to make transfers of quality players happen. They want to shop the transfer market, but not at the prices commonly asked in that market.
That approach is bound to fail.
And then you think back to what us fans were hearing from the owners before the stadium move, all the promises and statements where we would be as a club, which players we could attract and so forth.
Like lambs to the slaughter many fans followed their sweet talk into the abattoir (or at the very least the livestock transport lorry for the time being). I fell for it hook, line and sinker too, big time.
I could give myself a slap for being so naive. The problem here is that fans don’t forget easily. Personally I will not just take anything our board are saying from now on with a silo of salt, I will actually pretty much believe the opposite of whatever they are telling us to be closer to the actual truth. Once bitten and all that.
My trust in them is completely shattered and as much as I love the club it puts me in a dilemma as I know that every pound I spend on club merchandise, tickets or other club related stuff goes into their pockets at the end of the day, paying for their loans and interest.
Yes, I know, the club pays a lot of money to keep the club running, for player and staff wages, stadium rent, insurance, tax etc.
But their words and actions so far have failed to convince me of their utmost desire to see us improve and grow as a club and team.
This is indeed the transfer window of truth (yeah, right!) for the board. If Andre Gray will be our top signing this summer we all know where we stand as a club and where we are headed under Gold&Sullivan.
The transfer window will be open for quite a while yet, and I actually believe the board are trying to sign a player or two, but with every quality target falling by the wayside, signing elsewhere, the pressure will mount. The result could well be West Ham panicking and signing players we never really wanted to pursue in the first place. Plus we’d probably have to overpay for these players too as our desperation to sign somebody, anybody, will grow with every day that passes in the transfer window. But I’m not hopeful anymore. Not one bit. These days I expect West Ham to deliver nothing. Which is probably the best way to approach transfer windows as it leaves a small chance for a pleasant surprise if you’re very lucky.
Finally, a bit of a feelgood story has happened near Dortmund in recent days. You’ve heard me dreaming about a Concordia player maybe one day playing for the mighty West Ham ?
Well, a 19 year old striker from Selm (near Dortmund) has now delivered the blueprint of how this could work. Joel Grodowski used to play for PSV, not the Paris version though, but PSV Bork in the Kreisliga Unna, less than 15 miles away from Dortmund. That league by the way is three levels below where my Concordia lads play.
Grodowski was breaking goalscoring records for his club all over the shop, so Borussia Dortmund (his favourite club too!) became interested in signing the amateur striker, but, alas, he failed his medical due to Spinal Stenosis, for you normal folk out there that is a narrowing of the spinal canal which can cause a burning sensation along the spine, pins and needles, numbness, pain or even loss of motor control.
Not acceptable for Dortmund, but apparently good enough for Bradford City.
The Bantams have now signed the German and will give him a shot in their development squad initially, with the intention of promoting him to the first team should Grodowski’s spine hold up well and his goalscoring form (94 goals in the past two seasons) continue to impress. Good luck at Bradford Joel!
As for West Ham I wonder which league or country our next signing will be hailing from. COYI!!!