Pouring it on: Allardyce watches West Ham ship six goals at a rainy Etihad
Robbie Savage: West Ham's Sam Allardyce should be hammered over their FOREST loss
West Ham are not the first London club to concede six goals at the Etihad this season.
And although I doubt if it makes for a tense second leg in the Capital One Cup semi-finals, losing 6-0 away to Manchester City in Wednesday's first leg won’t make a huge difference to the Hammers' season.
But I am baffled - absolutely staggered - that Irons boss Sam Allardyce ran up the white flag and fielded such a weak team in getting beaten 5-0 at Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup third round last weekend.
It was an insult to the competition and an insult to the West Ham fans who travelled in big numbers to the City Ground.
Managers talk about their players being tired, but I’m not having that. Not in a million years.
Players would much rather play three games in a week than train every day – if you’re winning, it makes the weeks fly past, and if you lose, you only have to wait three days to put it right.
I have never understood the mentality of clubs who treat the FA Cup as a chore or an inconvenience.
No disrespect, but West Ham are not going to win the title or get in the Champions League, so the domestic cups are their only realistic chances of glory.
Given Man City’s impregnable form at home this season, Allardyce would have been better served by fielding his strongest possible team at Forest and then taking his chances at the Etihad.
A home tie against Championship Ipswich or League One's Preston in the fourth round would have been more attractive than disgruntled fans calling for Big Sam’s head.
And what’s left of West Ham’s season now?
No chance of a trip to Wembley, just a grim relegation battle - you can almost feel the excitement in the East End.
Contrast: Sam Allardyce (back) looks glum as Manchester City's hat-trick hero Alvaro Negredo walks of
Is time up? Co-owners David Sullivan (left) and David Gold (right) have endured a dismal spell recently
Thumping: West Ham have shipped 11 goals in two games after losing to Nottingham Forest 5-0 on Sunday
Fed up: One young supporter was captured by ITV cameras in floods of tears at the City Ground
Looking bleak: West Ham were thumped again as Allardyce's injury-hit side were beaten 6-0 at the Etihad
Unstoppable? Edin Dzeko fires City's sixth goal home in the Capital One Cup semi-final first leg
In vain: Allardyce bellows at his players from the bench during the thrashing on Wednesday evening
Waiting game: Carroll's lengthy layoff has seen the east-London club struggle for goals
One that got away: John Heitinga (left) turned down a move to West Ham, who signed Roger Johnson instead
Big freeze: Mark Noble and Carlton Cole step out of a cryogenic chamber in the wake of the City defeat
Ice man: Carlton Cole still manages to pose for a photo while inside the -135C chamber
Sleepwalking to disaster: Keeping Avram Grant as manager cost the club dearly in 2011
This is getting ridiculous. Hapless Hammers could sleepwalk over a cliff again
West Ham paid the price in 2011 when they refused to axe Avram Grant
After a heavy defeat by Nottingham Forest, Hammers were thumped 6-0 in Capital One Cup semi-final first leg by Manchester City
Hammers have conceded three or more goals 10 times this season
East-London side may struggle to attract big-name signings this month
The question for the owners of West Ham United is how long will they allow themselves, and their club, to be made to look ridiculous?
It is no longer that West Ham are bad. That could be said of any struggling club in any league in any sport. There are a lot of bad teams about, every year. What is happening at West Ham is bad cubed. Maybe bad to the power of 10. Beyond bad, in fact.
There is playing lousy football and going for 11 goals in the space of four days. There is poor form and there is conceding 22 goals over six matches. West Ham look ridiculous. Therefore David Sullivan and David Gold look ridiculous, too.
Contrast: Sam Allardyce (back) looks glum as Manchester City's hat-trick hero Alvaro Negredo walks off
Contrast: Sam Allardyce (back) looks glum as Manchester City's hat-trick hero Alvaro Negredo walks off
Had enough? Co-owner David Sullivan has backed Allardyce time and again
Where does it end? The Championship is the obvious and flippant answer to that but, if West Ham’s fate is to fall from the Premier League, there are months to go before this financially and politically catastrophic consequence occurs. In the meantime, how far becomes too far?
How long will the two Davids, as they are known, have to suffer scorelines that are personally and professionally embarrassing before they act? The owners promised a different team, a better team, after the January transfer window but increasingly that appears empty rhetoric.
West Ham thought they had Everton reserve John Heitinga — who has started only two games, both in the Capital One Cup, this season — earlier in the January transfer window, but were rebuffed. They thought he had a better offer from a Premier League club, but were wrong there, too. He simply didn’t want to sign for West Ham — and he won’t be the last.
It is surely not insignificant that only Roger Johnson, late of twice-relegated Wolverhampton Wanderers and an unsuccessful loan spell at Sheffield Wednesday, has rallied to the cause so far.
West Ham’s disastrous run is making them the least attractive proposition in the Premier League. At this stage last season, Queens Park Rangers attracted France’s striker Loic Remy. Such a signing could save West Ham’s season, but could the club hope to pull it off now?
What player of the necessary quality would join a club who lost 5-0 to Nottingham Forest with the reserves and then 6-0 to Manchester City with the first team? Don’t be ridiculous. So he is a lucky man, Sam Allardyce. Much like England’s cricket coach Andy Flower, he has contrived to collect the plaudits for his management nous in the good times, yet avoided the taint of overwhelming failure in this leanest of years.
Flower is the man for this crisis, we hear after England’s 5-0 Ashes whitewash in Australia, which rather ignores that, for such a top-drawer motivator and manager, he entirely failed to anticipate it or reverse the nosedive once it came.
The same with Allardyce. He makes great play of his ‘Sam Allardici’ alter ego when results go well, but this present crash is being met with the regular recital of an injury list that, while debilitating, does not represent sufficient mitigation for an almost complete defensive collapse.
'At City, it was almost as if West Ham accepted their fate with a collective shrug. With full backs and emergency loanees in the team, what else is there to do but lose 6-0? Quite a lot actually.'
Allardyce juxtaposed his free-transfer full back George McCartney having to play in the centre against Alvaro Negredo and Edin Dzeko on Wednesday night and reeled off the injuries to Winston Reid, James Collins and James Tomkins as justification for such a feeble display.
Yet West Ham have conceded three goals or more on 10 occasions this season — and in six of those games Allardyce has had two of his front-line centre halves available. Collins and Reid played against Everton on September 21 (lost 3-2), Reid and Tomkins against Manchester City on October 19 (lost 3-1) and Collins and Tomkins faced Norwich City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United, conceding a total of 13 goals as a partnership in those four games.
Injuries have taken West Ham’s defensive frailty to dismal new levels, but no Premier League team have received such regular batterings this season. Fulham have conceded three or more goals on eight occasions; Sunderland on five, Crystal Palace three. West Ham, remember, 10.
In addition to this, it is worth remembering that Chelsea won a Champions League final against Bayern Munich with Jose Bosingwa at centre half. Isn’t that what coaches are supposed to do: re-organise, react or, at least, limit the damage?
At City, it was almost as if West Ham accepted their fate with a collective shrug. With full backs and emergency loanees in the team, what else is there to do but lose 6-0? Quite a lot actually.
Keeping the tie alive would have been a start. It is hardly edifying for the club to have to adjust ticket prices for the return leg in a forlorn attempt to attract an audience for what should have been one of the most in-demand and eagerly anticipated matches at Upton Park in recent memory.
They cannot even sell the game on the presence of world-class opposition. What sort of team will City field on the night? The reserves, with a few first-team players on the bench just in case a couple of early goals go in?
That is a tactic that might have served Allardyce better at Nottingham Forest last weekend, when youth followed inexperience into battle, like a bad First World War re-enactment.
Coup: This time last season, QPR landed Loic Remy (left), but West Ham's chances of a marquee signing to bolster their survival bid look bleaker with every heavy defeat
Coup: This time last season, QPR landed Loic Remy (left), but West Ham's chances of a marquee signing to bolster their survival bid look bleaker with every heavy defeat
As embarrassment piles on humiliation for the owners — who have twice broken West Ham’s transfer record on Allardyce’s behalf — removing the manager is no guarantee of survival. Yet neither is keeping him any more.
The motivation for maintaining the status quo would appear to be financial — Allardyce’s pay-off is believed to be above £4million — coupled with a perceived shortage of replacements. Yet the same logic saw West Ham sleepwalk over a cliff under Avram Grant in 2011.
Back then, as the void appeared before them, West Ham’s directors skipped a match at Manchester City, which ended in a 2-1 defeat. Had they attended they would have witnessed the moment when a sudden gust of wind in the tunnel scattered Grant’s notes, which he comically struggled to retrieve.
‘Like something out of a Jacques Tati film,’ said a passing cineaste.
And, yes, it was a ridiculous sight; but it was never more ridiculous than this.
Crystal Palace manager Tony Pulis: Sam Allardyce will pull it off for West Ham
Crystal Palace manager Tony Pulis: Sam Allardyce will pull it off for West Ham
TONY PULIS reckons there is no better manager in English football than Sam Allardyce to guide West Ham out of their relegation scrap.
The under-fire Hammers boss is clinging to his job following back-to-back humiliating defeats to Nottingham Forest and Manchester City.
But Crystal Palace chief Pulis believes Big Sam is still the man to turn things around at Upton Park.
“He's thick-skinned, strong and tough enough to ride it out”
Tony Pulis
Pulis said: "Don't worry about Sam. He's thick-skinned, strong and tough enough to ride it out and get results at West Ham.
"I don't think there is a better manager in this country. Just look at his record, in respect of turning things around and getting results.
"Although they are having a bad time at the moment, everyone has hard times in their lives whatever job you are in, whether it's football management, as a secretary or writer. You have good times and bad times."
Andy Carroll has returned at the right time for the Hammers
Andy Carroll to the rescue: Comeback striker lifts West Ham
ANDY CARROLL will make his long-awaited return for West Ham at Cardiff tomorrow as Sam Allardyce plays his final card in a bid to turn around the club’s season.
Record signing Carroll has been on the sidelines for the entire campaign having suffered a foot injury in August, just as he was on the point of recovering from an existing heel condition.
However, this week he completed his full programme of exercises, including the jumping and heading motion that caused the problem in the first place, and he will be put on the bench in the Welsh capital.
Allardyce has always insisted he would not rush the 25-year-old back into action and risk further damage. But after conceding 11 goals in two humiliating cup defeats, Allardyce is in desperate need of the psychological boost Carroll’s presence in the squad will give.
Carroll first returned to training on Wednesday last week and ahead of the disastrous trip to Manchester City took part in his first full “11 v 11” exercise as part of the opposition to the Capital One Cup semi-final side.
The club will monitor how he performs in training this morning but, should he come through unscathed, he will get the green light to be part of the squad aiming to end a run of seven Premier League games without a win.
Yesterday, the club released pictures of Mark Noble and Carlton Cole undergoing state-of-the-art cryotherapy, enduring temperatures of -35 degrees to help shorten their recovery periods.
Many of West Ham’s problems in recent games have been mental rather than physical and Allardyce attempted to address that issue in an email to fans on the club’s database in the wake of the City defeat.
We are professionals and we’ve got to take the criticism thrown at us because that’s what happens in the game at this leve
Sam Allardyce
“You either come out fighting or you sink and die,” he wrote. “I come out fighting as a manager and my staff and players are the same. We’ve got to get out there, face the music and use it to anger us, if you like, make us mad, and win football matches.
“The players can’t feel sorry for themselves. We are professionals and we’ve got to take the criticism thrown at us because that’s what happens in the game at this level.
“We’ve got to be man enough to take it on the chin and be determined enough to show people that what they think at this particular moment in time is wrong.”
West Ham’s owners David Gold and David Sullivan issued a letter at the start of the week pledging their continued confidence in Allarydce and yesterday they were busy following his instructions in the transfer market in a bid to bring in much-needed reinforcements.
Talks continued in Milan over the possible loan signing of Inter striker Ishak Belfodil, although it is unlikely now that pen will be put to paper in time for tomorrow’s game.
At the same time, the club are still hoping to land Monaco’s 6ft 8in striker Lacina Traore early next week.
Sam Allardyce is battling the odds at West Ham
Last stand for West Ham boss Big Sam Allardyce
SAM ALLARDYCE chose uncompromising realism yesterday. Not that he had much choice.
“Our players tried as hard as they could but they couldn’t get near Manchester City,” he said in an email to West Ham’s incensed supporters.
“You either come out fighting or you sink and die – I come out fighting.”
Earlier, in the wake of the pitiful 6-0 thrashing at the Etihad Stadium on Wednesday, he had said: “What do you expect when you have free transfers against players who cost millions and millions?”
It is a reasonable argument against the financial imbalances between the biggest clubs and the rest which exist in modern football, even if it came nowhere near answering the supporters’ more profound concerns about why there was such a deficit in spirit as well as ability in the Capital One Cup semi-final first leg.
But given that blunt, hard-nosed truth has been selected as the order of the day in the latest crisis to engulf the endlessly turbulent Boleyn Ground, Allardyce now has to face another unbending scenario tomorrow. If his team capitulate in the relegation six-pointer away at Cardiff in the same way they did at City and at Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup last weekend, the game will be up.
The combative words will not mean anything any more, even though they set the right tone yesterday. The pot will be empty and the battle will have run its course, and it will be plain there is no more Allardyce can do – not even with his gritty reputation for winning the game’s toughest battles in the long run.
He would, given his straight-talking mood, surely expect a summons from the boardroom which has backed him so publicly. Often, football coaches are despatched too quickly. On other occasions though, there has to be a recognition that nothing is working any more. If there is no response in what will be an intense and tricky situation – Cardiff’s new boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is in charge for his first home game – then there will not be any response further down the line either.
Then there will surely be the change at the helm which, Allardyce has acknowledged himself, is the threat hanging above him.
Even by the often surreal and comical standards of Upton Park, there is an oddity at the heart of this crisis. True enough, the injury blight which has scythed apart West Ham’s defence is a serious one. The manager has a fair case when he points out how many important players have been missing. In the final analysis, though, such mitigations never count.
Our players tried as hard as they could but they couldn’t get near Manchester City
Sam Allardyce, West Ham manager
Allardyce has not cut his usual bullish figure on the touchline. His body language has not matched the rousing statement of yesterday. Here is one of football’s Red Adair figures apparently lost for a solution. It simply does not fit with all that he has stood for previously – and it is puzzling.
The Hammers stalwart and Sky analyst Tony Gale was driving back to London from Manchester yesterday after attending the match as a supporter and said: “The fans up there were magnificent but they deserved so much more from the performance.
“There was hardly any attempt to stop the City forwards surging through.”
Set aside the disgruntlement about Allardyce’s style, which has nagged at West Ham’s following even while he was delivering exactly what he was employed for in his first two seasons – promotion and then the security of 10th place in the Premier League last year.
What was so striking was that the things which Allardyce teams could always be relied upon to exhibit – organisation, robustness, toughness and defiance – were utterly absent. “The football isn’t good, the lack of passion and pride is awful,” added former Hammer Julian Dicks.
Hammers fans will settle now simply for the passion and pride part of that equation being on display in Cardiff. Many concede still that his background equips him for this fight like few others, despite the present traumas.
But if he cannot deliver any more in such desperate circumstances, with the move to the Olympic Stadium a burning fuse-wire, it will be plain that the tough, realistic, pragmatic and resolute ‘Big Sam’ brand simply will not work in east London any more.
helsea manager Jose Mourinho is confident he can sign Manchester United's England striker Wayne Rooney, 28, in the summer and will reject the chance of a short-term answer to his attacking problems. Rooney's current contract expires at the end of next season. Chelsea failed with a string of offers for Rooney last summer.
Full story: Daily Telegraph
Wayne Rooney.
Rooney has scored nine league goals this season.
Sunderland manager Gus Poyet wants to sign three Argentines. Estudiantes defender Santiago Vergini, 25, is close to joining the Black Cats and he could be followed by Catania goalkeeper Mariano Andujar, 30, and Internacional midfielder Ignacio Scocco, 28.
Full story: Daily Mail
West Ham could miss out on a loan deal for Inter Milan striker Ishak Belfodil after Fiorentina moved for the 21-year-old Algerian.
Full story: Daily Express
Southampton striker Dani Osvaldo is a target for Inter Milan. The Serie A side could offer Colombian midfielder Fredy Guarin, 27, who is also wanted by Chelsea, for Italy forward Osvaldo, 27.
Full story: Daily Mail
Everton manager Roberto Martinez wants Spartak Moscow's Republic of Ireland winger Aidan McGeady, 27, and Swansea forward Thomas Ince, 21, but could wait until the summer to sign the duo for less money.
Full story: Daily Mirror
Dani osvaldo
Osvaldo has started nine league games since joining from Roma for £15m in the summer.
Manchester United and Liverpool target Ivan Rakitic is set to stay at Sevilla after the Croatia midfielder, 25, made it clear he wants to remain in Spain.
Full story: Daily Express
Chelsea goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois wants to meet manager Jose Mourinho and make a decision on his future by April. The Belgium international, 21, is currently in his third season on loan at Atletico Madrid.
Full story: Metro
QPR manager Harold Redwanker wants to sign Jermain Defoe on loan despite the Tottenham striker, 31, being on the verge of a move to MLS side Toronto.
Full story: Daily Mirror
Valencia are considering a loan move for Liverpool forward Iago Aspas. The Spaniard, 26, has scored just once since joining from Celta Vigo last summer.
Full story: talkSPORT
OTHER GOSSIP
West Ham are considering a move for Nottingham Forest manager Billy Davies if they sack Sam Allardyce.
Bill Davies
Davies returned for a second spell at Forest in February 2013.
Full story: Daily Telegraph
Manchester United's Netherlands striker Robin van Persie, 30, could return from a month out with a thigh injury for the trip to Chelsea on 19 January.
Full story: Daily Mirror
Everton's Republic of Ireland right-back Seamus Coleman, 25, will be given a new contract at the end of the season.
Full story: Daily Mail
AND FINALLY
Borussia Dortmund's Poland striker Robert Lewandowski, 25, is considering employing bodyguards after signing a pre-contract agreement with Bayern Munich.
Full story: Daily Mail
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