Ready Steady Go

By: AlexG | August 15th, 2008

A huge apology first for my wankerdom in being absent, I’ve recently relocated countries and am just now starting to settle in. (read, stolen wifi) In any case Hammers fans haven’t missed too much recently, Bellamy is injured, Ljungberg left in a big money blunder and we signed some kids who are so insignificant that Wikipedia has frozen their articles stating that they aren’t players of note and thus don’t deserve a page (bear in mind that Pokemon, Captain Picard, and other fictional characters all have Wikipedia pages)

Now onto the season, finally. What’s to come? Well one way or another, this will be quite the season for us Hammers. Since we’ve only signed Behrami, we’ve really got to keep fit this season. Whether that means firing the entire coaching staff and hiring meticulously careful trainers, this is a top priority.. Last year we basically had 20 mil on the bench dicking around, perhaps most notably Julien Faubert. A fair amount will be expected of that investment should the board decide to add further to the transfer kitty, as they do need so see at least some return on their old investment. And to be honest, Curbishley doesn’t exactly exude confidence of return of investment.

A big part, too will be the start of our season. In the first 8 games, we’ll have Wigan, Blackburn, Newcastle, and Bolton at home while visiting Man City, Fulham, Hull City, and West Brom. Thus, I feel that our season, without a good start, will be doomed to failure, and ultimately this eight game stretch will be the litmus test for Curbishley’s job. We could potentially win, and should win 5,6, or even 7 games this opening stretch. Any less than 5 and Curbishley will be gone like that.

As for tomorrow against Wigan, I feel that we’ll be fine. Some of you may be wondering about their new signing Amr Zaki, however. I must say having lived in Egypt and seen him play locally for bastard team Zamalek, he’s just alright–he’s quick, but no genius. He’s got a bad attitude too, so if we score one early he may start dicking around. I think I’ve seen him score once, when the opposition were up by three. And it was a garbage goal. He may be good for a goal, or not. Hard to say, really. I’ll go on the line and predict a 2-0 victory over Wigan. Ashton has been in good form and I bet he scores a brace tomorrow. Unless of course, the awful Boa Morte is on the field, then anything could happen. Shouldn’t we be be selling him to Fulham sometime soon?

Finally, I’ll go crazy and predict that we’ll finish dizzyingly high at eighth. That could be changed (for better or worse) depending on coaching though…perhaps Mark Hughes will be so mad with Thai Rak Baht Thaksin that he’ll come here…:)

Hope for all the best, and make sure to catch my post match analysis!