6 Comments

Irons may not be as “massive” as some believe

 

By CandH’s top blogger Allen Cummings

 

It’s all too easy to get carried away sometimes – especially where football supporters are concerned – and I don’t just mean West Ham supporters.

Get a couple of wins and a decent run of form under our belts and we’re all the same – there’s instantly a feeling ‘this is it’! We’re on the way to the big time. Of course, but for the very privileged few, the reality is never far away to bite us on the bum.

David Moyes has worked wonders at West Ham over the past two seasons. Even his detractors, and there are still plenty of them amazingly enough, have to begrudgingly admit to that.

When he arrived for the second time we were a shambles, but in two seasons he’s brought proper European football back to the east end – the Europa League last season, the Europa Conference next season, and we’ve finished sixth and seventh in the Premier League, both remarkable achievements.

But have we allowed our imaginations to run away with us just a little. Are we really as ‘massive’ as the song claims? Or in reality is that kind of statement still a good way off?

Should we maybe first look at being the equal of a team like Arsenal, still a huge name in English football, before we start contemplating matching up to the likes of Manchester City or Liverpool?

David Moyes is tasked with a difficult job as he strives to bring in much needed new faces and add strength and depth to our squad. Of course he’s going to talk-up the team and the club as he seeks out new recruits. Why wouldn’t he?

He now has the carrot of being able to offer newcomers a second season in European football. But with the best will in the world it’s not the Champions League – and that’s where the very best want to be playing.

And we’re definitely not as cash-rich as some others are in the Premier League. So is he wasting his time when we’re told he’s been linked with the likes of Kalvin Phillips or Darwin Nunez – two transfers that ended up with Manchester City and Liverpool respectively?

Is Moyes, as was suggested yesterday, in danger of thinking West Ham are a much more attractive option than we really are? Should he forget trying to tempt the ‘big boys’? Maybe lower his sights a little?

Trouble is whatever the manager does and whichever route he goes down there will be those who insist he’s taken the wrong turning. We all know that from experience.

Many will continue to claim if we really want to be dining at the top table we have to do our shopping at Harrods – no matter what it costs.

Others will insist we should go shopping in the lower leagues for bargains that we can develop and grow which in turn will bring the cry “shopping at Primark”!

Of course if Moyes did steer that route there would more than likely be a settling in period, a check in the club’s recent momentum and very possibly a falling-back from where we are now. How well will that go down with the fanbase? I can guess.

It’s a highly delicate balancing act – a tightrope that’s oh so easy to topple from. And as always there will be plenty of people just waiting to pull the net away if the manager falls.

 

About Hugh5outhon1895

Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!" Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

6 comments on “Irons may not be as “massive” as some believe

  1. I have tended to view the “we are massive” theme as a bit tongue in cheek and/or our typical East End humour!
    To compete fully with the top six establishment will take several years and they will fight all the way to stop us and others gate crashing their cosy elite.

  2. Yes the “massive” song is just us being ironic although the song is now starting to get on my nerves.
    .If we don’t end up with buying another forward in the time the transfer window closes i will be seriously thinking about whether i would be able to give my support to Moyes anymore.

  3. Of course we all realise we were fighting relegation before the last two seasons. Now though, we are massive. Absolutely massive.

  4. Like Budgie, I was aware the massive is just a joke among fans for a bit of fun, we are not massive financially we are probably high end of top 10 with the clubs still in the PL, perhaps Sean can confirm, Everton, Leicester, Newcastle, Chelsea, Man Utd, City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham ahead of us in what they could draw on if FFP wasn’t in place.

    I can’t understand why Moyes isn’t buying top talent like Keane Lewis-Potter from the championship to keep the wages down and develop, I understand it would be nice to get World Class players in but we are not at the level where we are guaranteed European players, we should have been in the CL places two seasons ago if he had bought strikers in that wanted to play for us instead we had Europa League and now Conference League, not sure how many times it has to be said but something is wrong in the recruitment department because we don’t seem to be able to do deals for our primary targets.

    I am convinced now that Lingard is waiting to see who we sign before he makes his decision which is why he keeps asking for time and I can’t blame him if that guess is correct, our Chairmen love to give it the big one about how attractive we are as a club but that isn’t backed up in the transfer market either when we buy or when we sell. We were probably all hopeful when Newman was appointed that would change but at City money is no object, we have to cut our cloth differently which is why Moyes initial idea to buy and develop young hungry players is probably the right one but we aren’t seeing them arrive and are seeing young players leave instead because they aren’t gettng the opportunities (rightly or wrongly )

    Strip all that away, we have a very good manager on the football side who has us punching above our weight and players that put a shift in, am very happy with that, now it is time to start a process to get our recruitment team to start punching their weight and above to match.

  5. I think it’s widely accepted that the “massive” thing is humour. But it does, I think, underpin the belief that as a club we still think small. Your article refers to finishing 6th and 7th as “remarkable achievements”. Remarkable ? I am inclined to dispute that.

    We have to accept we will never be able to compete with those clubs bankrolled by Nation States or sovereign wealth funds. It is also a difficult ask to compete with those clubs who regularly feature in the Champions League and in doing so benefit massively from huge broadcast revenues.

    However West Ham are, and over the years have usually been, one of the best supported clubs in the country. Other than the so called Big 6 and Newcastle who, even before the arrival of Saudi money, have always enjoyed huge support, which clubs, even going back to the days of Upton Park, regularly drew in more crowds to watch ?

    “Cash rich” we may not be but we are regularly led to believe we are cash strapped. Given our attendances and the fact we seem to feature almost as often on TV as the top 6 we should be able to compete financially with most of our competitors.

  6. Very good analysis No 32 agree entirely. I think Lingard is holding out for a ‘ better’ offer as he has many opportunities to say yes to us. Broja is a worry as we don’t know if Chelsea will sell to us, so we could be waiting for nothing. I think Dennis from Watford would be a decent fit, and he can play in the Prem. Most of all, it’s disappointing that nothing seems to be going to a plan like others – Villa, Newcastle, Spurs all done much more than us. Do we have a plan? It’s a worry.

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