Alan Curbishley certainly found himself swimming in the deep end when he replaced Alan Pardew as manager of West Ham United in December 2006.
Pardew was given the boot by Eggert Magnusson almost immediately after that Icelandic takeover of Upton Park.
So in came Alan Curbishley, appointed to lead a club facing a bitter relegation battle, soon to be at risk of financial collapse, and embroiled in the Carlos Tevez – Javier Mascherano saga that would rumble on for years and have Neil Warnock threatening to become football’s answer to the Hulk.
Together, Tevez and Curbishley saved the Hammers from the drop, at the expense of Warnock’s Sheffield United. Mascherano’s West Ham United career was no less controversial – the club were found to have broken third-party ownership rules, per BBC Sport – but far more forgettable.
What is your take on Alan Pardew’s BRUTAL comments? 🤔
And what is the bigger issue? The stadium or the squad?
Because while Tevez grabbed West Ham by the scruff of their neck and dragged them over the line, Mascherano joined Liverpool after just five Premier League appearances for the Londoners.
Alan Curbishley explains why Javier Mascherano left West Ham United for Liverpool
Speaking on The Managers’ podcast, Curbishley recalls the meeting which led to Mascherano’s early exit, and the criticism which came his way.
“I walked into that [situation]. I obviously knew they were there, but I didn’t know what had gone on with the third-party dynamics and everything else,” Curbishley says. “Mascherano hadn’t been playing at all, and Tevez had a few little appearances.
“I had an interpreter, so I got them both in and asked, ‘What do you want to do?’. Mascherano said he wanted to leave, and Tevez said he wanted to stay. I said, ‘Thanks for that, but I don’t know the situation, with the arrangement and everything else.’
“So, I talked to the Icelandic owners. Suddenly, Liverpool came in for Mascherano. Fine. I got a lot of stick for that. We let him go. Obviously, we kept Carlos.”
Back in 2007, Curbishley told the Liverpool Echo that he felt Mascherano owed him a debt of gratitude, having permitted him to leave a club where he had failed to overhaul Mark Noble, Nigel Reo-Coker, Hayden Mullins while freeing him up to help Liverpool on their Champions League charge.
Rafa Benitez’s Reds would lose that European final thanks to a Pippo Inzaghi brace for AC Milan, but a 22-year-old Mascherano’s days of competing at the very highest level for the very biggest prizes were only just beginning.
The current Inter Miami head coach would go on to win 19 trophies for Barcelona. Mascherano exercised the ghosts of 2007, also, when lifting the continent’s biggest prize twice in Catalonia. Barcelona beat Manchester United in 2011 and Juventus in 2015.
West Ham could have gone on to become a force under Alan Curbishley’s stewardship. This was a huge mistake.
Which player do you think he was talking about?
Paul Konchesky was wowed by Mascherano’s ‘unbelievable’ rise at Barcelona
Former left-back Paul Konchesky recalls watching Mascherano fondly on the training pitch, even if his obvious talents would not be viewed particularly often by the claret and blue public.
“It was interesting [when Tevez and Mascherano arrived]. We trained probably on a Tuesday and the manager didn’t take the session. We were like, ‘Where’s the manager?’ Then ‘Pards’ came walking onto the training pitch with these two fellas,” Konchesky told Under the Cosh.
“‘Who are these?’ The lads were like, ‘they’re two signings!’. The manager called us in, you could see from his face they weren’t his signings. They came from above or whatever. He obviously introduced us and the lads we were like, ‘I told you’.
“Mascherano never played! He never, ever played. I remember Christian Dailly tried to tackle him, and he put his foot on the ball, rolled it through his legs and got out the other side. The things he could do. But he didn’t play.
“Hayden Mullins and Nigel played [instead]. I think he went and played in a reserve game at Bishop Stortford, under the lights, a 7pm kick-off one day.
“Nige was the captain and, to be fair, Hayden was really steady and he did really well. But [Mascherano] goes on to play for Liverpool and Barcelona, and he couldn’t get in our team! Unbelievable.”
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