Other players to have been included are Joe Hart, Jamie Carragher, Stephen Warnock, Adam Johnson and Darren Bent. Amongst the usuals.

Zamora and Hargreaves miss out.

Here’s the full provisional squad

I feel the fans’ were entirely right to point their criticism at the players that night because the result was unacceptable. Although SuGo don’t really seem to want to let the matter go, and continue to drag our private affairs through the public spotlight, I feel the biggest thing we as fans can do this afternoon is forget about Tuesday.

It’s happened, it’s finished…we can’t change that.

I was as vociferous in my criticism of the players on Tuesday night as the next man (or woman), but today is a new day. A new game. A new opponent. And the worst thing I feel we could do is bring our grievances from Tuesday night with us.

I published the other day an exclusive interview with David Gold alongside a couple of videos with Upson and again Gold, immediately after the game. Since then, SuGo have continued to berate the team in letters to the fans and scathing attacks on the player’s fitness and attitude. It’s not helping anyone.

Here’s an alternative letter to the staff and supporters written by twobob , who I feel perfectly sums up how we should try and react…the spirit of Villa Park, 1991

It will certainly be a challenge, but if we do go 1-0 down today let’s just bust out a continual chorus of “We are West Ham’s claret and blue army” – let’s pick the players up and carry them through, so we call all truly put Tuesday night behind us and take the three points.

COME ON YOU IRRRRROOOOONNSSS!

The comments from Gold and Sullivan as they faced the press after buying their 50% controlling stake in West Ham filled many of us with some optimism once more about the future of our club. OK, the debt was huge, but that’s what they were doing surely, helping to resolve the debt. To keep our bigger name players and maybe bring in some new faces. In fact, their exact comment was:

“We can reassure fans who were terrified that they were going to lose two or three of the best players that that is now not going to happen.”

This is fantastic isn’t it? We’ve got new owners who have a love of West Ham on their hearts, they’re West Ham fans after all…he was born just up the road at number 442 after all. If I remember, Terrence Brown was a West Ham fan too.

OK, maybe they’re not able to bring in star players but at the very least we have some stability. That’s all we as fans ever asked for. Direction and stability.

Sullivan’s trap didn’t stop there though. Since the ‘takeover’ he has continued to spout his mouth off about the debt we are in. Frankly David, we don’t need to hear it any more. It’s not that any of us are in denial about out perilous financial situation, we’re all very aware of that…hence our desire to wrap up new owners as quick as possible. The worst thing you can do it continue to chat to the press about how bad things are still. But continue he does and it’s not filling me with any confidence in the slightest…and it’s certainly not stabilising.

Stability – or complete lack of

This one, for example, about Zola published just today:

Of all the managers I’ve dealt with he [Zola] is the nicest. The question is ‘Is he too nice?’ Ossie Ardiles was the nicest guy you could meet but look what he did to Tottenham. Time will tell. Zola will prove himself over the next few games

Helpful.

Or this one

“It’s not awful” – in reference to selling Upson. In fact, he continues…like only he can.

“If we can get a substantial sum for him then we’ve got to take it. It’s business sense”

But why stop there?

“He’s in his prime as a centre-half, but he is probably in his last four or five years and it’s not awful that he has to be sold”

What possible remaining incentive is there for Upson now to give a toss about playing for us any more? Why should he bother?

He’s clearly not wanted here by the ‘owners’. But remember, they’re West Ham fans after all so what they’re saying must reflect that of West Ham fans across the globe. Just because their bit on the side once had some beef with Upson, there’s no reason so sacrifice him just to keep her happy. Because none of us want her here more than Upson.

In fact it’s nothing more than demoralising, foolish, unhelpful and utter stupiditiy. Maybe that is the case that Upson wants to move on…so be it. But to come out into the media and say something like that is quite simply a huge kick in the b**locks to everything we’ve fought for over the past few seasons…to keep hold of the bigger name players. To push places in the league. It was a mistake to sell Collins at the expense of keeping Upson maybe, but to now say that “Upson will be sold and we don’t really care much about it” makes us look like right royal mugs.

To say, however, that it makes business sense to sell him completely undermines one of the first things they ever said publicly about West Ham – that buying us “makes no business sense at all”

They said that buying West Ham from that point of view was a stupid thing to do, therefore if keeping Upson is a stupid thing to do too (from a business point of view), then they should do it. Because from a footballing point of view, it’s the right thing to do. And I’m here for the football.

It actually undermines what they said about us not losing our biggest players too – well actually maybe it doesn’t. At least we’re not “terrified” any more as we know it’s going to happen.

Personally I feel that Sullivan and Gold have done nothing more since they come in than rock the boat. They came in riding on their donkey’s, self-proclaiming themselves as the saviours of West Ham. Filling us with a confidence that what had been, is no longer…we can comfortably look forward to security and stability. Yet since that day they have done nothing more that take the megaphone by two hands, blurt their mouths of and frankly agitate the situation further.

They came in riding on their donkeys, self-proclaiming themselves as the saviours of West Ham

Buying West Ham makes perfect business sense

Here’s the thing. Buying West Ham does make perfect business sense…maybe less so if we go down however. OK, wage bills are through the roof and we’ve acquired some major crocks over the past few years. That, we all agree, needs to change.

Why are they so keen to to get us into the Olympic Stadium – so keen in fact that they’ve employed some tart on what is likely to be a huge amount of money who is solely responsible for getting us into that stadium. The reason they are so set on getting us there is because of the value that the Boleyn Ground holds.

They are set to make a huge amount of money if we end up at the Olympic Stadium.

We move to the Olympic Stadium, we rent it. We sell the Boleyn for a substantial sum – therefore easily reimbursing Gold & Sullivan for their investment in the club and then some. They are set to make a huge amount of money if we end up at the Olympic Stadium.

So yes, buying us at a fairly decent price make complete business sense.

Trouble is, sell the Boleyn and you all sell our soul. You lose the atmosphere and the passion that has resonated around the famous stadium for decades. I can’t help but think that they are only likely to drive our club down a division or two by making a grave misjudgement about this stadium move. It’s the wrong thing to do…but not for them, it will work out brilliantly.

UPDATE: In  fact, in response to Sullivan’s most recent remarks, Zola has been pushed to question their necessity. To get Zola cross takes a lot of work:

“I am not happy about it, I don’t think it does any good for the team.” — Zola

Summed up my post nicely Franco, cheers

]]> http://westhamprocess.FootballUNITED.com/2010/02/09/brown-was-a-west-ham-fan-to/feed/ 4 http://westhamprocess.FootballUNITED.com/2008/12/30/west-ham-to-sell-entire-first-team-squad-to-spurs/ http://westhamprocess.FootballUNITED.com/2008/12/30/west-ham-to-sell-entire-first-team-squad-to-spurs/#comments Tue, 30 Dec 2008 12:08:23 +0000 Sam H http://onyahead.com/westhamprocess/?p=1095

Perhaps it’s just me, or is every single newspaper in the country writing a story about how we are selling all of our best players and keeping all of our fringe players in the January transfer window? Harry Redknapp at Spurs is more than likely to be after most of them at some point or another, we’ve now rejected a £12m bid for Bellamy from a team whose front line cost approximately £30m. It is true, that Spurs are desperately in need for a bit of class in their strikeforce, but as far as I care if they value Pavlyuchenko at £14m, then Bellamy must be worth at least £50m.

It’s good to see that the Harry turnaround is really in full swing now – all the best down there Harry, you fit right in. Enough about Harry ‘the money-grabber’ Redknapp and Spurs wanting all our players, it’s giving me back-ache.

Like I said earlier, all the talk is about how our entire team needs to be sold just to remain a football club, so in an attempt to clarify a few things here and there, here are a couple of quotes I’ve picked up over the week:

Zola:

“The commitment is to improve this team so we’ll try to keep all our players, everybody at West Ham wants to take this team to a better level.

It’s not easy because we have very good players in our team and big clubs are looking for good players.

There’s also the financial thing but the club tells me it’s not a problem”

Good, next…

Rob Green

“These things happen in life, but we’ve been assured as senior players that there won’t be a fire sale from the chief executive and we’ll just have to wait and see.

I’m happy playing for West Ham in the most exciting league in the world. What more motivation do you need?You don’t want to go out and have a bad game, and I love playing for West Ham

You look at the team and everyone who gets out there wants to play well for West Ham. There’s not many unhappy faces, if any, in the camp.

But there’s not much I can do about it. All I can do is keep playing well. I want to play for West Ham, all the lads do

Spurs and Bellamy

“Spurs manager Harry Redknapp underlined his determination to sign Bellamy by doubling his original £6m bid but the Hammers are determined to hang on to him” – Mail

Zola Again

“As far as I’m concerned the club is on the same line we want to keep our best players.

Yes we will try everything we can to keep them obviously we have a project, an ambitious project and we need good players to achieve that.”

They are all quotes that I have picked up from the last 7 days and from what I can work out it is a very different message to actually what the media are trying to stir up. It will be in the best interest of BG to try and hang onto these players because when it comes to selling a club, a team with these players (Upson, Parker, Bellamy, Green) in it is far rosier than a team without.

To clarify to the media, the players in question when we say we will be offloading fringe players are Louis Boa Morte, Faubert, Gabbiddon, Davenport (unfortunately), Quashie, Spector and preferably Carlton Cole. What you have there is a lot of players, a lot of wages and I would think at about £12m in transfer fees…that should at least pay-off Sheffield United with a bit of change I would have thought.

So either we are being completely lied to once again, and if that is the case there could be trouble because we won’t take to kindly to that. Or Zola and the other senior players are speaking the truth and we can look forward to us holding onto these players in the new year and actually pressing forward.

COYI!

Sam

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