Finally the “Keep off the grass!” signs will be coming off PL pitches up and down the country, next weekend the latest edition of the most watched league in the world will kick into gear again and as usual it will be touted as the biggest, the best, the most skilled, most exciting, most breathtaking ever. We’ll see about that!
For West Ham though it really does feel different compared to previous (underwhelming) summers.
There is a new manager at the helm, supported by a DoF – and of course a number of highly promising new arrivals have already found their way to East London, with more reinforcements rumoured to be on the way in the coming days. For whatever reason the PL clubs have decided it’d be a great idea this year to shut the transfer window in England way before their European counterparts do, but it is what it is and I’m sure Pellegrini and Husillos are well prepared either way – with prefered players and alternative options lined up aplenty, so we can go into the upcoming season with a squad that’ll be significantly better and deeper than previous versions.
Manuel Pellegrini is the most successful and high-profile manager this club has ever employed. Pellegrini has won the PL title before. He has been successful at big clubs with money to burn and smaller clubs with far more ambition and hope than disposable cash. He plays football the right way, attack-minded, passing football with a focus on keeping possession of the ball and taking the game to the opposition rather than just reacting.
In Bilic we had a relatively young (and naive) manager who probably was too nice to the players which some of them shamelessly exploited.
Allardyce did a job of course, but not much more, his brand of football was very predictable and rarely pleasing on the eye. Similar to Moyes.
Pellegrini seems to know what he wants, from his players on the pitch and also from the board behind the scenes.
I have no doubt that lines were drawn in the sand before MP signed on the dotted line. I am still convinced something must be afoot. What we are experiencing this summer at West Ham is so diametrically opposed to everything that Gold, Sullivan and Brady have done in their odd 25 years of running football clubs that I refuse to believe they have been patiently waiting in the wings, twiddling their thumbs for all those years until Pellegrini came riding along in his shining armour.
I am also impressed with the realism MP has brought to the club as he is planning without Reid and Andy Carroll at this point and rightly so!
Too often we are hearing the old chestnut of players being like new signings when coming back from injury. Well, maybe they are – until they break down again soon after which seems to be the more likely scenario for both Reid and Carroll at this stage of their career.
You cannot and you should not build your teams around those players and you also shouldn’t plan your transfer window in the hope that them players will be able to contribute a lot next season. Whatever they contribute will be a bonus, but it’s not something you should count on.
Thankfully MP and Husillos are still busy trying to get deals over the line, names we keep hearing are Bernard, the free agent attacking midfielder from Brazil who may arrive in East London this week unless of course he picks the greener grass and bigger pot of cash which apparently is being offered to him in China, we shall see.
We may also witness the much awaited arrival of a proper defensive midfielder and ball winner in Thiago Maia, another Brazilian who would be arriving from Lille.
Also highly touted and rumoured to be West Ham bound is central defender Harold Moukoudi, a strong young prospect from the famed Le Havre Academy.
And there is a good chance we may also boost our attacking options with the arrival of Lucas Perez who has fallen further down the pecking order at Arsenal.
He is rumoured to be available at a reasonable price and if that is the case it surely wouldn’t hurt to bring in a significant upgrade on Jordan Hugill who is almost guaranteed to leave us either on a loan or on a permanent deal.
In my opinion we cannot continue to hope for the injury troubles to just miraculously go away and leave us alone – we will ALWAYS have injured players at West Ham and if we want to improve as a club we need to be prepared for that with a deep squad, with the ability to rotate players and with competition for places all over the pitch.
I cannot wait for the season to begin now and it’s been a long time since I’ve felt as confident about our club as I do now. I’m not going over the top though, trying to keep things both in perspective and check.
If our football improves, if we ship less goals than last season, if we stay away from the relegation places at all times and if we finish anywhere between 12th and 8th in the table I will regard it as progress and a good foundation to build on.
In any case one good transfer window alone won’t do for us – hopefully we will see a proper Pellegrini era at West Ham now, with MP building and improving our squad from one transfer window to another – with the same kind of support from the club hierarchy as we are seeing now. COYI!!!
Quick Hamburg football update for those who are interested. Both Concordia teams have won their respective league games, the first team won 2:0 against Condor last Friday while the U23s won their home opener on Sunday by an impressive 9:2 scoreline.
Tuesday will see Cordi’s first team “travel” the couple of miles down the road to face my neighbourhood side TSV Wandsetal in the local cup competition – in the football ground that of all grounds in town is located the closest to my flat and is actually in walking distance (probably ten minutes) and it looks like my brother and my nephew (who celebrated his 11th birthday on Sunday by the way) are going to join me for that game – should be a great occasion on a glorious summer evening!
Hamburg SV carried on where they left off last season and lost their first ever Bundesliga 2 fixture, at home against local rivals Holstein Kiel 0:3. Embarrassing!
While St.Pauli started much better, winning their season opener away at Magdeburg in Eastern Germany by a 2:1 scoreline.