I’ve written about the ins and outs of Picklive before but it’s basically a live fantasy football game. I’d certainly recommend you play along whilst watching in the warmth of your own home!

If you need a little help with understanding how best to play the game then there’s a brilliant preview here which is full of tips.

CLICK HERE to play now

COYI!

As for the game itself, it is on according to the Official Site. Other people have also phoned the club to check and they confirmed, again, that it is on. However there are reports that the ref, Mark Clattenburg, is stuck on the M25. Which is brilliant news as he’s definitely got it in for us.

When I say sponsoring, we’re basically picking up the bar tab – each of the meetups coincides with a decent game of football, so it will be an afternoon/evening of football, beer and general banter.

There are more details on this post here: Football Blogger Meetups

Bloggers of Birmingham City, Wolverhampton Wanderers, West Brom, Aston Villa, Manchester United, Manchester City, Walsall, Stockport (etc etc) we’ll be in your neck of the woods first so have yourself a butchers are the details page linked above and get yourself over for some beer.

I’ll be at all the events – and most certainly the ones in New York, Washington DC and Madrid – so if you’re based anywhere near any of those then it would be great to catch up for a pint.

Football Blogger Meetups with FootballUnited.com

So, it’s not a post attempting to start the rumour that Joe Cole is coming back to West Ham (I could claim inside knowledge), but simply an eye opener to the possibility of it occuring. The facts as I see them are that City are very keen to get hold of Parker – not that I would want to seem him leave, and that Zola will only sell with a view to strengthening the squad. Would people consider the return of Joe Cole as strengthening the squad? I certainly would! For the money City are offering for Parker we could easily afford to bring Cole in. I think. I’m never to sure with West Ham. Ok, I assume we could afford to bring him in!

Now, the likelyhood is that Spurs will probably fly in with a £200m bid (with a cheeky bit on the side for Harry if the deal goes through)…but would he want to go to Spurs?

It is transfer rumour season, and I am honestly trying not to get too carried away, but my post yesterday about a return for Tevez just got me feeling all optimistic again!

Edit: Can I quickly just clarify, I am not saying for a second that Joe Cole is coming back to West Ham! Just questioning whether we could prise him back from funds released if we were to sell Parker…that is all!

On the topic of rumours, rumour has it that Manchester United are set to sign their kitman up – apparently he’s got skills. Have a look at the video if you want proof:

Newcastle v West Ham: Live Stream

I’m hoping that this weekend I will be able to bring you the game live from the comfort of your own home…just go to the link below, bookmark it, and come back Saturday…COYI!

Newcastle v West Ham: Live Stream

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If you have enjoyed my posts over here at The West Ham Process and would like just that little bit more, then stick your email in the box below to get regular updates in your inbox:

Obviously the likes of Manchester United and Liverpool up up at the top. It’s a shame to be below a couple of clubs, but at the end of the day apart from Leeds we have been in the top-flight for less seasons than all the clubs above us.

Here is the link:

All Time Premier League Table

Hope somebody finds a use for it!

Do you think we could raise enough money on here to get my blog on the front of the West Ham shirts, instead of that stupid claret(ish) patch?! I’m thinking our board would bite my hand off for a couple of hundred quid!

Sam

Some of the names being mentioned are the following, in no particular order:

- Ivan Klasnic from Werder Bremen,
- Ruben de la Red from Real Madrid
- Valon Behrami from Lazio
- Mikael Silvestre from Man. U
- Crespo from Chelsea (!)
- Lucas Neill to Galatasary (or Galla-tass-arey as David Pleat would say)

It’s all just getting a bit silly.

But for what it’s worth, I’m going to break it down (not dance) and see what (if any) element of truth is in each rumour.

Ivan Klasnic

He’s a striker, he’s a free agent and he’s pretty good quality. I watched all but 2 or 3 games of the European Championships and obviously got to see a fair amount of him play. He looks pretty sharp in my opinion, and he did score two goals before Croatia got knocked out.

He may have spoken to Billic about us which would obviously put us in quite good stead.

My only issue with this one is that with Gudjohnson still lingering about and having not got rid of any strikers yet, do we really need to be linked to a new one? Unless of course we get rid of Carlton Cole, then maybe there is a chance.

Ruben de la Red

This guy, in my opinion, didn’t have such a good Euro 2008 (obviously apart from the fact that Spain won it!). At least it wasn’t as good as people were expecting. But he has always had potential. C’Mon Yu Irons has reported today that we have made an enquiry about the central midfield play-maker.

Valon Behrami

This rumour is simply a case of “thought to be interested”. So pretty much absolutely no substance to it at all. Makes a change.

But here are the details anyway…he is a 23 year-old Swiss international defender rated at £9m. He also currently plays his trade at Lazio.

In my opinion, he is not needed at that sort of money.

Mikael Silvestre

Ok, so when I said that the list was in no particular order, I completely lied. They are definitely it would seem in the order of players I would least like to see at the club.

You all know about this player and at the end of the day I would say it is highly unlikely that Manure are going to let him go.

I won’t go on.

Hernan Crespo

On very good information, we reported this story last week. Unfortunately, not much has happened since then regarding it…but you can read what we had to say here.

Lucas Neill to Galatasary

This transfer has also been mentioned quite recently in newspapers including the Daily Mail. It’s based on the fact the Harry Kewell has quite shamelessly moved to the Turkish giants and it is thought that as we need to trim our squad and Lucas does carry and extortionate wage then there could possibly be some truth in the rumour.

If there is, then the Valon Behrami mention from earlier could very well come into play.

Causing me to have to shuffle the list around because we would then definitely need a player who can play at right back…Behrami fits the bill quite nicely.

It’s all very interesting, but at the end of the day if any one of these transfers goes through, I will eat my Claret and Blue Dr. Martens. Maybe not that extreme but you get the idea.

Sam

As a hammers fan, I am totally outraged by this “potential” move. We should not be shafting out the youngsters the club want to build a future on, they should be trying their hardest to bring in young players who can take the club forward.

Let’s face it, last season was not an enjoyable season, it was satisfactory… mid table, Quarter finals of the League cup, beat Man Utd and Liverpool at home, then losing 4-0 THREE times on the spin… and how are we going to improve on that?… “we’re selling Anton”

Curbs, do us a favor and bring in some quality talent, someone with flair like Benayoun and Di Canio once gave us. Kevin Doyle is OK but west ham can bring in bigger and better, we have done it before and why should we stop.

If I wanted to go watch some oldies play for west ham, I would go to the London Masters.

So Alan we want talent, we want a future, with the players we got, it looks like our future is only going to be 2 years long, Neill, Ljungberg, Bellamy, Bowyer… that was the dream team… but of the 2000 season, its 2008/2009 now, we are 8 years behind every club. Whereas in 2006/2007 (yeah we only just escaped relegation, but those players are quality) we had the team of 2008, a year in front, maybe we thought too far forward. BUT, where are they now? playing UEFA Cup football for another team in claret and blue, helping Liverpool get to another semi-final and helping Man Utd win the Champions League…we saw 5 ex-hammers feature in the final… that should be us!!!!

Respect and keep up the west ham faith!

Adam

NB: This post is purely representative of one ardent fan’s opinion. If you would like to get your voice out there, please get in touch with Sam on whu9105 [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk, and I’ll see what it can muster.

Sam

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