West Ham Proper

West Ham’s first serious friendly of the pre-season was a bit of a disappointment – we were largely outplayed by Spurs in Beijing. There are still a number of question marks over West Ham at this stage, and time is running out before the season proper starts.

There’s a lot of concern from some fans and pundits over our striking options, but there’s no panic on personnel issues – there’s still a good six weeks of the transfer window left, and as always very little is likely to happen until closer to the deadline. If we are hanging on, as rumours suggest, for Gudjohnson, Mancini and Neill to make their final decisions on where they want to play, then it ties our hands – we can’t go to plan B while plan A still hangs in the balance.

My concern is not over strikers but defensive midfielders – Parker got through 45 minutes here but he was clearly nursing himself through the performance. With months to sort out the problem, he is clearly not 100%. I’m confused over who his deputy is – we seem to have a lot of very promising midfielders, but very few anchor-men. I can say with certainty that we will lose every game we play with a lightweight midfield three of Dyer, Jiminez and Collison, as started the friendly today.

What will concern Zola more is that the players seem to be clueless about West Ham’s gameplan at this stage. We seem happy to allow Cole to plough a lone furrow up front, and have yet to show that we have a viable plan to build any sort of attack in possession. It is damned hard to look at our 5 midfielders in these friendlies and see any sort of pattern or formation at all.

Zola wants us to be fluid and unpredictable, but at the moment our players just look confused. All it needs really is for Zola to get out on the training pitch and tell players what their responsibilities are – at the moment it looks like he’s simply shoving them onto the pitch with the license to ‘play’. But these are young talents who need guidance.

Again there is no panic. If Zola held up his hands and simply gave up on his clever formations we could start the season with a 4-4-2, and put Dyer, Savio, Nouble or Hines up front with Carlton Cole. I think we’d be fine – we’ve shown that we have what it takes to grind out victories in this league. What worries me is that we may start the season experimenting with formations.

The thing I’m happy about is that West Ham are in the pre-season straining to find something better than the average. For all their tidy play today, Spurs offer very much a known quantity when they come on the pitch – poor as we were today, we do have the air of a mercurial and potentially dangerous side. I wouldn’t want to swap that.

The reality for all mid-table clubs is that the battle has been lost before it’s even begun this year. Man City have bought at least a top-5 berth with their outlandish spending and I really think they could challenge at the top of the league if they hit the ground running this season. This means that the mid-table clubs are realistically fighting for 6th place at best and an outside chance of Europe if we’re lucky.

But the good news is that our closest competitors from last season seem to have realised that ambitions have to be tempered this year, and appear to have slowed down their spending as a result. Spurs have just signed Crouch but they will move on a striker to cover for that. Villa lost Barry and have bought Downing. Everton have done nothing yet.

Why spend a ton of money this season with so much less to play for? It’s a good time to consolidate.

West Ham’s financial problems have come at quite a convenient time. With a bloated squad to clear out, the last 12 months has been good for the club’s pockets, and with a new set of principles and a progressive coach it’s worked a treat so far.

So while some fans have their eyes on the transfer market, I think it’s wiser to look within for the next big names to make a splash at the club. Josh Payne, Zavon Hines, Savio, Bondz N’Gala, Jordan Spence, Frank Nouble.

Of course the club will continue to look to strengthen the squad on a budget as well. Gudjohnson would bring welcome experience and versatility, as long as he doesn’t break the bank in the process. I still wonder about Kovac – he really would give the squad such a dependable depth. And I’ve heard that Aussie Lucas Neill is available on a free transfer – that would be a terrific coup for the club .