The big Premier League kick off of 2024 has now happened, and rather predictably West Ham United welcomed Aston Villa to the London Stadium for our opening game of the year.
Given all the transfer rumour speculation that we had seen linking us heavily with their young Colombian striker, Jhon Duran, those amongst the Hammers fan base who are not adverse to occasionally having a flutter against us, would probably have found great odds on the 20 year old scoring the winner. Had we actually managed to sign him and met their valuation, our fellow claret and blue rivals would have undoubtedly made similar bets on him scoring against them on his immediate return as football tends to work out that way.
For those more into online casino games given their growing popularity, Australian based Hammers might be interested in finding out more about Smart Pokies and the available free spins whilst they wait for the next fixture to cycle around, as they are bound to find something that they would enjoy during their free time.
Sadly, history shows he did bag the winner as we went down 2-1 on the opening day of this season, but new manager Julen Lopetegui will have seen enough from our performance to have been happy with what he saw in general, and undoubtedly he will have already spotted certain things that can be quickly improved upon as we move forward through the fixture list. Villa had their chances, and defensively we can tighten up. But we had our own chances, and in the future we can better make them count.
For every reason obvious to all, the result will take precedence this week, but with the summer transfer window still open (albeit deadline day is beginning to near) there is plenty of commentary from those pundits in the wider world of football, and former England and Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Jermaine Jenas, has now decided to comment on our decision to let Ben Johnson leave.
As fans will know the 24 year old Academy graduate seriously impressed many in the 2023/24 season as he better broke into the first team and became a more regular option under former manager David Moyes, but for whatever reason we could not agree a new contract extension with him and he naturally left as a free agent over the summer.
He has since signed for newly promoted Ipswich Town and has now made his competitive debut (as a substitute) for the Tractor Boys. But Jenas seems to be a little bit confused over the fact he would not commit to us (as opposed to us committing to him), and in turn, we have now signed the likes of Max Kilman, Jean-Clair Todibo, Crysencio Summerville and Luis Guilherme, and whilst fans will have their own ideas on how successful those captures may actually prove to be, we are stronger as a match day squad.
Jenas has focused on something that was out of the clubs’ real control for reasons only he can explain. Johnson turned down an improved offer to stay with us, and it can be reasonably assumed that it would have been on vastly improved terms given his game time last season, but he signed for a club whose own fans expect relegation.
Does Jenas really want to blame us for that?
We all know pundits will often try and be controversial just to get noticed, and talked about in the wider world of the media, but picking this particular subject as a stick to try and beat the club with is largely nothing but a puerile act. The vast majority agree that so far it has been a very good summer for us with the captures that we have made, Jenas would probably be better suited to sticking to the optimism right now if he wants to be taken seriously.
There would also undoubtedly be those who feel that Aaron Wan-Bissaka is an upgrade and a better player anyway.
Image Source: unsplash.com