Wow. When I found out our friendly today against Bournemouth was televised on ESPN3 (so many ESPN’s I cannot keep track) I had this whole plan to write a report with some funny comments about writers needing match fitness too. And then, almost as if on cue, West Ham took what should have been an utterly innocuous few days and turned it into one the larger s*#t storms in the board’s infamous and relatively failed career in football. And that’s saying something. The bar for such things is pretty high in their world.
While many may disagree with some of this, in my opinion so much of what we have all experienced the past few days is more about what it represents than the actual events. Let’s start with the match that lit the current wild fire, the sale of one Grady Diangana. On it’s face, with zero emotion or history as a factor, one could make the argument that it had merit. He went out on loan to gain time as a first team footballer. In that time, he played very well for West Brom and became a fan favorite. But he also missed a sizable part of the season with a hamstring injury, an injury that has a better than small chance of recurring if The History Of Hamstrings is a textbook you own. West Ham have a cupboard full of only one type of player, and that’s midfielder. Despite his good performance this pre-season, particularly linking up with Haller, that’s still a small sample size on which to make a decision. So some of the evidence points to making the deal with West Brom.
But we all know it’s not that simple. If we hadn’t been told that the move to Stratford would result in changing those hiding fortunes of the club, would there be such an uproar? We were told the move would bring in world class players, yet now the owners say we have no money and that it’s all the fault of the previous manager and his hand picked DOF, who were in charge for less than two seasons. Can we blame Pellegrini for the 170 million spent on strikers over ten years, only to sell those same strikers for 70 million? There’s your 100 million pound debt right there. Or as one person on Twitter said, although I haven’t done the research and math to confirm it, they have taken more out of the club in dividend payments than they have spent on fullbacks since they purchased their initial share in 2010. The list goes on and on. You don’t break up with your partner because they forgot to refill the toilet paper or they ate all the leftover Chinese food that you wanted for lunch. Those transgressions are usually an example of what has been wrong for many, many years.
The same can be said for Mark Noble’s outburst on Twitter yesterday, and the reactions by Rice, Wilshire, and Haller on that platform later. As I said on Twitter last night to my good friend Dan Silver, “I’m 55. I’m no dummy. It doesn’t take rocket science to see through that comment. His saying he’s “angry” was his diplomatic way of saying F-Off to them. It was as good as saying GSB out.” It goes without saying that Mark Noble is West Ham through and through. There is virtually no chance he has not held back comments and feelings during the reign of incompetence we have been witness to. But everyone has a breaking point. That moment where years of anger and hurt just overflow, like a pressure cooker, and they blow. If someone bought my company and over years turned it from one of the most respected wine and spirit distributors in New York into a gimmicky member of the trade that is never spoken about in the same breath as other respected suppliers, I’d likely go ballistic at some point as well. I’d probably quit to be honest. I may not have been able to predict this would be The Captain’s breaking point, but I was neither shocked nor critical of him for doing it. Some have said it was unprofessional and he could be punished for it. OK. He can afford a fine, but I don’t know if he could afford the self loathing he might feel not putting West Ham ahead of those that currently own it.
They need to go. They won’t anytime soon because they possess the dangerous combination of arrogance and stupidity that always leads to doom and destruction.
And we played a meaningless friendly today that might not be so meaningless. The squad looks unsettled now. When you perform as poorly as we did one week before the season opener, conceding five goals to a relegated club, it shines a pretty big spotlight on the issues we all know already exist. And because of the firestorm created in the past 48 hours a normally annoying pre-season result will absolutely turn into a large gas tank poured on the flames.
Just another day in As The West Ham Turns.
GSBOUT