I would like to wish everyone on this blog, be they site owner, fellow author, occasional or regular contributor and all our readers and lurkers a Happy New Year 2020!
May it bring you all peace, health, good fortune and happiness! Which is certainly what our football club could do with after what has been a shambolic first half of the season.
I won’t go into deep analysis mode here, I can’t be bothered to go over all the same old stuff again. We all know. We watch the games and we see our club is a basket case with a multitude of issues on and off the pitch.
Pellegrini was sacked immediately after the Leicester game which didn’t come as a surprise. Finally even my patience with Pellegrini had run out. He eventually lost me during this game when he brought Antonio on while taking Haller off. We have all witnessed how well both of them looked when playing together. And we were desperate for goals against Leicester’s second string.
This substitution seemed to be Pellegrini’s final “Please put me out of my misery“ message to the outside world. I reckon he’s glad he can go home to Chile now and enjoy his retirement.
As for his successor, I no longer care that much who replaces Pellegrini, under the current owners it doesn’t really make much of a difference anyway. Put Jack Sullivan in charge if you like. Or Neil Warnock. Lord Buckethead, Sporty Spice or the Sugar Puffs Honey Monster.
I don’t care anymore. If Moyes takes over he too will be gone 12 or 18 months from now. Rinse out and repeat. We can then ask Allardyce if he fancies a return. Or Avram Grant.
Our club is dying a slow death here, but the final nail in our coffin might come much sooner, if our board are not careful. I wish I could be writing something more encouraging at this point, with a more positive and hopeful twist.
But the club are giving me nothing right now to warrant a rallying cry.
So, all that’s left for us fans is to see how things will develop from here on. Surely we’ll have a new manager in charge very soon. Surely there will be an initial upturn in effort and application from the players, all enjoying a clean slate, trying to impress the new gaffer, whoever he may be.
Surely we will fight on and maybe, with the guidance of the new man in charge and a slice of luck, secure Premier League status again.
Then what ? More of the same ? Surely not.
I can sense some serious backlash from the fanbase on the horizon. Some will simply stay away, for a while or for good, but others won’t go quite so gently into the bad night.
Whatever may happen at West Ham next year, I hope you all have more reasons to be cheerful in your lives away from football in 2020!
It’s been an honour to write for the blog in 2019 (although admittedly my column has rarely been resembling a barrel of laughs in the past 52 weeks) and I intend to continue to provide my column for a bit longer at least.
COYI!!!