With the latest news about managers and the results of this week-end, we can take some time to imagine a little bit the future. It is not a surprise; there are several things that will need a lot of attention from our owners and our manager. Sam Allardyce is apparently close to sign a new deal. There is no manager available with his talent, his expertise and who has succeeded in his reaching his targets.
In this context let’s focus on one of the challenges he will face with the owners in order to build a more competitive side for next season. Even if we scored 3 goals this week-end, we would all agree on the fact that West Ham has not scored enough this season. The side was built more to defend than to produce some football on the floor but it is not the only explanation. Probably our wingers have not been performed enough as well but it is clear that we have to think about our tactical approach on how to score goals and who we will give that responsibility.
Let’s review this season first
We started the season with 4 senior strikers. We recruited Maiga, we kept Carlton Cole and it was clear that Maynard would not stay, with a question mark over Sam Baldock’s head. It was obvious that it wasn’t enough and it was no secret that Sam Allardyce was not convinced that Sam Baldock could perform in the Premier League. Baldock has been sold and after weeks of discussion, West Ham succeeded to hire Andy Carroll on loan.
With the arrival of Carroll, Cole would have thought it would be difficult for him to get into the starting line up, but the repeated injuries of Carroll have given him some opportunities this season. In fact since the beginning of the season, the unique competition was: who will be the forward in the starting eleven and of course that could disappoint any young ambitious guy. The result has been a lot of disappointing performances from the attacking line.
Maiga himself felt useless. How could he fit in a long ball system where the preferred option for the second ball is Kevin Nolan even when he is not fit. This winter transfer window had complicated the situation of Maiga with the arrival of Chamakh. This means that we now have 3 options with more or less the same profile which fits to BFS plans. Bad news for the fast and technical forward he is. Maiga had to go and it is confirmed that he was looking for the opportunity to be loaned or to move away. This had not been completed, he’s back and if we stick to the actual system, I don’t think it will benefit him.
To be honest I would offload another forward, so sorry for you Paulista. I guess Wellington came here with the willingness to perform but sorry guy, you made the wrong choice as our coach is Sam Allardyce. He will suffer the same situation than Maiga and will go back to Brazil with 6 months lost playing with the Development squad, however he did earn nice wages and lived in a magnificent city. I just hope this deal was not just another opportunity to make profit for people in the agent/recruitment circuit. This signing is looking a bit like Saha in Lazio or Anelka in Juventus. Nobody understand why it happened and what was the expected outcome was, but it was a predictable failure.
What does that leave us for the 2013-2014 season
Chamakh will go back to Arsenal, I don’t even understand why he was on the bench against West Brom. We have to sell Maiga as he won’t have more time on the pitch next season. Paulista will return to the heavy bag of anonymous Brazilian players. Cole is at the end of his deal and Carroll is on loan. That means than on paper we have only Lee.
What are we going to do?
Will Carlton Cole renew his contract? Have we proposed anything to him yet in that way? I fear that we won’t, even if I’m sure Carlton would be delighted to continue and finish his career at West Ham. I know that a lot of fans won’t approve, I know as well that Carlton is more than a football player, he is really important for the spirit of the squad. But does he deserve to play only if there is an injury and to spend another season on the bench at only 29? Carlton has declared he was open for the discussions, I hope we will talk with him and we will see if he will agree on a challenge like this.
Carroll in permanent deal? Four days ago I would have written that I was thinking it would not happen. Not because I don’t want him with us, with our coaching system or with a more attacking one, but he is so still too much expensive for me for the number of goals he has scored. Talk that discussions started with Wilfried Bony’s agent were for me signals that we were looking at other solutions but the way he played on Saturday might have changed the situation. Sam Allardyce has been promoting the recruitment of Andy Carroll all season and surely this is a valid reason for him to argue that Carroll is still the man.
Is Carroll interested? Is the 17 million price quoted for the player justifiable? Will it be serious to buy him at 17 millions even he scores 5 more goals in the last games? Is Newcastle capable to make an offer that would convince Liverpool to sell him to the favourite club of Carroll? Maybe Carroll is already looking for somewhere else and we can’t do anything even if we would like to keep him.
Not really promising isn’t it?
Hopefully our owners are smart enough to have already noticed that situation. They are already working on next season’s plans and we’ve read a lot of articles already mentioning Rickie Lambert, but Southampton will probably stay in the BPL and that could maybe convince Lambert to stay in Hampshire. Bony is now trying to force us to pay him more than what he deserves and some bigger clubs are in the race as well. The key element in the recruitment discussions at the moment is the fact that we do need to secure our place in PL as soon as possible as it will help to secure some decent deals.
Hopefully we will have collected the necessary points, the hardest it will be is to get some good scorers on board. The victory on Saturday has complicated the situation with Carroll as he is now scoring and maybe the option Bony has lost some momentum but it also has a positive impact as we are closer to the situation, where it will be easier to talk to agents and decide on our own who we want.
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