The Hammering Blow Which Burst The Bubble

Crash. Bang. Wollop. Alan Pardew looked on in despair as Eggert Magnusson fumbled Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez’s shirts during their major imports’ Upton Park welcoming, in amongst the confusion of a smokescreen. Avram Grant shrugged his shoulders at the collapse of the infrastructure built by Gianfranco Zola.
5 Managers in as many years have contributed towards the Hammers’s clangers, which have made for a calamitous, dull, black and white, fuzz through recent times of an otherwise prestigious history.
Football is a funny old game and West Ham in recent times signals pure maelstrom.
West Ham’s comedy of errors would put a silent sit-com from the 20s to shame, in turn becoming nothing short of ignominious at playing football and it’s hard to believe that such a tenuous team had once significantly impacted the national team on winning the world cup.
Come Saturday, Sam Allardyce slumps in his seat in the dugout and endures the entire dreary goings on. That sight is quite frankly as equally uneasy on the eye as the ugly sham which he manages. Thoughts smattering with groans on outdated methods concerning team shape and pass length leave him for a second. Nothing swims in his brain except asking himself how to infer his side’s drab showing in a drab tone, post-match.
West Ham’s miserly attitude towards a mid-week League Cup tie in Wigan practically insinuated a friendly to a side above and beyond them, tactically; for the away team, it was a chance to rest first-team starters and prepare for a proceeding relegation battle.
All sorts of bemused and staggered, Allardyce acts himself; an impression of the troublesome Mr Bean from the original cartoons. He had the nerve to label the shambolic showing as “comical”. It was little far from self-criticism.
Ineffective lumping of the ball stems from their embarrassing manager. At an average height of 184.6cm, Allardyce has transferred in acquisitions capable of gaining an aerial advantage over the opposition. Put it this way: it’s no coincidence. The intended end product exist the tallest squad in the league. There’s not a shadow of a doubt where Allardyce’s ethos lies. He exemplifies the focus on height to fit in with his ruthlessness; to stick by his cards, narrow-mindedly.
In footballing terms, Sam Allardyce has created a monster that could do worse than to be tamed- and soon. It takes time to adapt from the mediocre Championship into the masterful class of the Premier League. Only time will tell in the long run. Meanwhile, 8 points from a possible 18 has been slowly tallied off. If this form continues throughout the season, West Ham will have 1 point short of 40 overall; certainly isn’t at surviving Premier League standards. Not even at any creditable standards.

Let’s gander the survival stats of sides with less than 40 points: Only 9 teams in 4 seasons have retained their premier status with less than the 40 point mark; and 6 sides from 2009 to 2011 finishing on unflattering points had gone on to be relegated in proceeding seasons. since 39 points last season escape relegation by 2 points, in 15th place. Take into account the insignificant strengths of those weathering the measle gust of a storm in their opening 6 games back in the big time and you start to feel for expectant Eastenders.
West Ham’s misfiring strikers are yet to score. They are isolated and cut lonely figures. The midfield is overly bypassed, over-run and out-run. Balls are lofted over-head to sizeable targetmen. The be all and end all of leathering it downfield at every opportunity of late highlights an over-reliance on Kevin Nolan, perhaps a main beneficiary of the basic, one-dimensional system. He breaks forward from an whatever there is of a promising attacking role to reach a long punt nodded down to him by centre forwards Carlton Cole or Andy Carroll, whatever that may be- more likely a bouncing ball amongst the scrambling aftermath. To counter, once Nolan is marked, what threat do the East-end club pose?
Like Kenny Dalglish beginning a new era at Liverpool last season, The Hammers have invested in a striker and a winger in the shape of Andy Carroll and, record-signing, Matt Jarvis from a Championship-bound club. A play set up a cross into the box and a header; simple. If it was just that simple to work a goal every time using directness, Liverpool would have topped the league last season and Andy Carroll would have won the golden boot. It didn’t work out to be quite honest. Andy Carroll failed to live up to his billing and Stewart Downing, of course, achieved the astounding fete of not mustering an assist, or a goal in the whole campaign. The same principles go for West Ham, reliant on crosses, which prove to be unsuccessful.

A wake-up call received by their optimistic owners 5 years ago alarmed the Irons as a club that the dreamy visions of salvation were a long way away. Hammers’ support rightly feels let down and humiliated by senseless promises broken by Eggert Magnusson. In reality, the Hammers’ ambiguous finances had been evaluated wrongly, without a plan. The icelandic consortium sold and left the darkness of turmoil.
Still, the players maybe will be ultimately booed off at the end of impending losses, yet only managers get sacked, not players after all. As a club’s fairing represents entirely all of its exponents, the board are partly culpable for causing reverts to long-ball merchants.
David Gold and David Sullivan signed Allardyce up to fill the void in the mangerial post. His devastatingly old-school visions oversaw mediocre teams, yet Sam Allardyce is the best manager to possibly be hoped for. Of those teams, he instilled desire sometimes omitted from sophisticated busy-bodies. It must be conceded. The ever cheerful Allardyce, basking in his uncelebrated glory, is the right man for the job. He wants his players to passionately play to the lengths of sacrificing passing.
I am in no way transpiring a resentful attack on long-ball tactics in a sport where it is so easy to jump to arbitrary generalisations. I am no critic of direct football. West Ham could do with targeting Stoke City’s rise to prominence as a blueprint for the future. The media deposit animosity sometimes where it is not due. To award credit where it is due, Stoke City are progressing into a solid unit pushing on from one season to the next and deserve acknowledgement for differing from the increasingly purist revolution. The Potters arrived onto the scene from relative obscurity by thriving in a fair, physical encounter, manufactured on the cheap in order to stay afloat on the biggest stage.
Alternatively, this could be considered as an apt time to move on. Teams in and around the mid-table, which Stoke have securely sealed a position in the past are improving. A 16th finish last season was Stoke City’s lowest ever in the division in their 4 seasons. Tiki Taka teams have a greater force to attract continental players than ever, with numerous scouts assigned with the roles of scouring the globe in search of continental players. Thus, better players. Increased revenue for Premier League clubs -TV pay going up 70%- means that clubs can spend abroad on.
West Ham’s resorting deployment of crash bang wollop won’t win many friends or the preference of talent. What West Ham do have is a man-manager who can hoard with a low budget.
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