West Ham United

I will begin my blog with the my first post analysing the team I have supported for as long as I could remember, West Ham United a.k.a The hammers or The Irons.

In my personal opinion, Avram grant got his team selection wrong all season long and this was the team that regularly turned out on a Saturday afternoon in front of the adoring east London faithful.

Rob Green

Lars Jacobsen
James Tomkins
Matthew Upson
Wayne Bridge

Mark Noble
Scott Parker
Gary O'neil (or Thomas Hitzlsperger towards the end of the season)

Demba Ba
Carlton Cole
Frederic Piquionne (or Robbie Keane towards the end of the season)

As the team got relegated it gives you a good idea that the team selected was either not good enough or did not gel well enough as team. I believe that West Ham has sufficient quality in their squad to survive and actually do well this season but I feel that the manager's in-ability to change the system when we showed signed signs of struggling was the main reason behind the failure of the Hammers this season. Admittedly the injury to Thomas Hitzlsperger for 5 months of the season was also a factor as I believe the quality of our performances improved dramatically with him in the team. I don't believe that Gary O'neil, Luis Boa Morte and Jonathan Spector had the creative spark in midfield that the German Hitzlsperger possessed. A player I also enjoyed watching was Demba Ba, Im positive he, along with a number of other players will leave the club this summer as the idea of championship football will not appeal to him. I got more and more frustrated over the course of the season as the fact that Ba was forced to play in a wide left position when clearly his strongest position was down the middle. Even worse was the fact that the man keeping Ba, our main goalscoring threat, was the misfiring Carlton Cole who managed a measly 5 league goals. That, for a striker apparently on the fringes of the England team... is woeful.

Scott Parker was the outstanding player for West Ham and fully deserved every single bit of praise he received from everyone who knew anything about Premier League football, his half-time team talk at West Brom was possibly one of the most inspirational things I have witnessed in football. It is a massive massive shame that we wont be seeing Scott Parker turning out in the Claret and Blue again. Winning the Hammer of the Year award for the 3rd season in a row and players' player for a 2nd year underlines and highlights his importance to the team that failed so badly to meet expectations.

A major talking point between most of the senior football pundits on television was West Ham's simple in-ability to do basics at the back. I completely agree, although I do like every member of our back 4 and believe they are all of premier league standard. Something must have gone wrong for us to have shipped 70 goals in 38 matches. Hopefully under new management and guidance the defence can be strengthened as a unit and we can keep more clean sheets. The tired old cliche 'If you don't concede, you don't lose' could not apply more evidently to any other team but West Ham. I think of two games where 2-0 leads were lost when we seemed to be coasting and ended up losing the game, you cant expect to concede an average of nearly 2 goals a game (1.8421 to be precise) and expect to stay up, especially if your strike force is not having any luck down the other end.

If Matt Cooper was manager this season and all the first team squad would have been fit, I would have chosen this squad:

Robert Green

Lars Jacobsen
James Tomkins
Matthew Upson
Wayne Bridge

Freddie Sears
Scott Parker
Thomas Hitzlsperger
Victor Obinna

Demba Ba
Carlton Cole

I picked this team in a 4-4-2 formation as I feel that the Sears-ing pace (sorry for that poor attempt at a joke) down the wings with Sears and Obinna would have caused more problems for opposition defenders and by having two wingers Demba Ba would have been allowed to enjoy a more central role where he could have caused more damage. I think the creativity of Hitzlsperger would have contrasted beautifully with the workmanship and graft of Scott Parker in the midfield and as a midfield unit we would have been a lot more effective going forward.

Sadly though, relegation means there could be a mass exodus as Upton Park and in my eyes many of the senior players will be leaving. Bridge, Obinna and Keane (my vote for worst signing of the season by the way) all came in on loan so they will return to their parent clubs. I also believe Parker, Cole, Ba, Upson, Green, Jacobsen and possibly Hitzlsperger will all leave the club to pursue their footballing endeavours elsewhere. So we look to next season, hopeful the youthful talents, Sears... Hines... Stanislas... Spence can lead us to championship glory alongside some seasoned veterans of the game, Gabbidon... Piquionne... Boa Morte.

I've got my fingers crossed for next season and hopefully West Ham United can make a swift return the top league of English Football.

Team Rating out of 100 - 74

Matt Cooper

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I have now decided that instead of reviewing films I have now decided to go into a slightly more niche market and will be reviewing a number of football teams from around the world. Hope you enjoy!

This is Cooper's Reviews

Here to offer you my own unique and controversial opinions on a wide array of different films.