Alex Song is a leader.

He has a presence, and “I’m the guvnor” approach to things that inspires confidence and allows the team to close down games they might otherwise lose.

David Gold has made it clear the club want to to sign him at the end of the season whilst Song himself has regularly claimed he might, and as mentioned on the site last week,  that could mean everything or nothing!

Alex has been doing more than enough talking on the subject. Indeed I even saw the same interview repeated in a popular national newspaper several weeks after it first appeared about how he loves it here and may or may not stay.

He then went on Football Focus and said much the same thing.

The club realise they are providing a shop window for the guy and his regular pronouncements about the end of a season decision on his future, without committing himself to West Ham, suggests he knows it too.

I think it’s a bit worrying that the club is letting it be known so publicly how valuable the player is to them and how desperate they appear to be to nail a contract at the end of the season.

Playing it cool is a big virtue in negotiations and I hope we hear no more from the player or the club on the matter until a deal is done or not.

Too many public announcements about our intentions may see us overplaying our hand. Alex is holding all the cards right now – let’s not give him more!