I was tempted to call this article “Kids say the darndest things!”, but this would be disparaging to my girlfriend who knows her football and despite having grown up in a Glasgow Rangers house, supports West Ham with the rest of us.
I was amused in the build up to another lacklustre performance in the FA Cup last night against Everton as my fine lady picked up on a few things which were being said.
“How can Carroll be injured again?”
That’s right, as pointed out by a fan on Dave Sullivan’s twitter account, the mercurial striker was missing from the West Ham line up with a bruise on his birthday, bless him! According to physioroom.com this is the 4th time this season Carroll has reported sick with ankle/foot injuries. This is a concern with Sahko at the Africa Nations for the next month and Zarate having gone to QPR.
“Has he made more saves cos the team is s@#t?” (About Adrian having the second highest number of saves in the premiership this season.)
Basically speaking I suppose this would be true. Based only on goals conceded West Ham are joint 6th, but this has largely been due to the fantastic form of Adrian. We are a young defence (Jenkinson, Tomkins, Reid and Cresswell) and they have been putting in some fantastic individual performances. I do not think there is cause for concern here, as they play together and get experience in the game they will become more consistent. Jenkinson should be signed permanently; he is potentially our best right back since Repka or Breaker.
“How do they not know where he is?” (Song)
We have since had the answer to this but the direct quote from Sam had us puzzled, “not sure if he’s there or not (Africa Nations), we’ll find out in the next couple of days”. How does the manager of a Premiership football club not know whether one of his star players is in Africa or not? Let alone been picked in an international squad. Pick up the phone man!
The news here is that Song has retired from International football and will return to West Ham, a relief somewhat and hopefully will return to a midfield in place of the clearly out of form Kevin Nolan.
Lastly on this subject, a few brief words about Dave Sullivan’s tweets. He isn’t wrong, however unprofessional it was, Nolan has been a passenger all year. I often ponder how much he must still be earning at the club. Could this be spent better elsewhere on someone young and hungry to succeed from the Championship.