Liam Barnes


Spot the difference between these two quotes.

1: “He admitted fielding a weakened team and, from our point of view, that is awful. We are going to put in a complaint.”

2: “No one can understand why there hasn’t been a points deduction [for West Ham], but I don’t think anyone else will be bothered by Monday or Tuesday. It’s Sheffield United – so what? Whereas West Ham are a big club with a big reputation. And they’ve obviously got good solicitors.”

The first is an unnamed West Ham United source, quoted in the papers from Wednesday 31st March this year, alleging that Roy Hodgson, in resting players for Fulham at Hull City in their 2-0 defeat on Saturday 27th March in order to concentrate on their Europa League quarter-final first leg against Wolfsburg the following Thursday, caused Hull to win a game they wouldn’t have won otherwise, and hence bring them level on points with the 17th-placed Hammers at a crucial juncture of the relegation dogfight. The second is a bitter remark from Neil Warnock, immediately after Sheffield United’s 2-1 defeat to Wigan on the last day of the 2006/07 season which, coupled with West Ham’s 1-0 win at Old Trafford against a Man Utd side already crowned champions and resting several key players, sent them down.

The difference between the two quotes is that West Ham have absolutely no case, whereas Neil Warnock, whilst possibly underplaying the extent to which his Blades side were Premier League strugglers, has a strong case.

Sheffield United were not the best team to ever grace the Premier League, and have little excuse for failing to beat Wigan at home, but were relegated largely as a result of West Ham’s illegal signings of Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez – the latter instrumental in the Hammers’ late season surge to safety – for which they earned a record fine of £25M instead of the expected points deduction that would have sent them down if it exceeded three points, as many expected. How many West Ham fans wonder how on earth they got away with staying in the top division that season?

And considering Sheffield United had to rebuild their team, selling the likes of Phil Jagielka and Rob Hulse to balance the books at the same time, and will next year enjoy a fourth consecutive season in the Championship they were dubiously demoted to, what good is £25M they haven’t even been paid yet as compensation for a disastrous legacy?

When Fulham rest Damien Duff, Bobby Zamora and a few others for the likes of Stefano Okaka, recently signed from Roma, and Clint Dempsey, an established Premier League and international star, West Ham’s accusations of a weakened squad are tenuous at best, opportunistic at worst. Further than that, it smacks of total hypocrisy after their survival three seasons ago rested significantly on a relaxed selection policy from Manchester United, and to attack Fulham, a well-run and well-liked club built on solid foundations and with a bright manager taking the Cottagers to the cathedrals of European football against the odds, is just ridiculous.

Seeing how the FA unfairly gave Wolves a suspended fine for rotating their squad against Man Utd to have their regulars fresh for the crunch game with Burnley four days later (they never would have dared do it to Liverpool or Man Utd when they made similarly dramatic changes), West Ham seem to have thought lightning could strike twice and they could again profit from idiotic decision-making at the FA.

Even if the motives behind this accusation of weakened teams are not cynical attempts at shifting the blame from an expensive and underperforming team, the result of it is to imply that West Ham players and/or management should not be blamed if they do indeed go down. This is absolute rubbish: a weak defence with a lack of prolific strikers, coupled with too many inconsistent and injury-prone players and an inexperienced manager fighting a high-pressure relegation battle with a turbulent boardroom above him, is a recipe for disaster. Add the big transfer fees for big egos on big wages who aren’t giving the big performances, and the dire footballing and financial situation they find themselves in is entirely self-inflicted, yet arrogance in the boardroom and a deluded sense of entitlement gives them the cheek to act as if it wasn’t their fault.

West Ham have form for this – many crowed that they were too good to go down in 2002/03, when they were relegated – and it may be that having traded for too long on the self-important boast of being ‘England’s Academy’ (owing to three of the victorious ’66 and a few more of recent World Cup squads being products of their youth system), they have convinced themselves that a club with no league titles and modest cup success deserve a permanent place at the top table as a God-given right.

Some will feel that suggesting West Ham have a superiority complex which fuels their most recent desperate attempt to stay in the Premier League is taking it a bit too far, but the fact is that they were very lucky to have been given a second chance three years ago, and the nature of their struggles this year is down to shooting themselves in the foot, not being shot in the back by their rivals. If they do end up going down and feel hard done by, they’d be wise to stop feeling sorry for themselves when they take the trip to Bramall Lane – the fans’ tongues will be sharper than ever, and the Blades will be baying for their blood. Promotion rivals or grudge match? They’ll be able to spot the difference.

 

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