Pardew: don't blame me, blame TC

Alan Pardew has suggested that recent talk of takeovers at West Ham hindered his chances of strengthening the first-team squad.

Pardew, explaining to the Newham Recorder this week why Shaun Newton was the only new face to come in prior to the transfer deadline - despite promises of new players, said:

"We tried to get people in but in the end nobody who could really have improved our squad came to the light. But I have to say that all the speculation didn't help either.

"People are looking at us and thinking 'what is going on?'- so it really wasn't very helpful that we had a supposed bid that was coming in, or wasn't as the case may be.

"It wasn't even a takeover, so these sort of talks were disruptive and unwelcome."

News of Tony Cottee's consortium was revealed to the nation in the News of the World on Sunday, 20th March - just four days prior to the transfer deadline.

Since then the only players to be strongly linked with a move to East London were Arsenal's Jeremie Aladiere and Crystal Palace's Tony Popovic - both of whom rejected the chance of joining the Hammers on loan.