West Ham fans

[wully 47,336]

Then a pint of bitter and a jellied eel afterwards.

[Kopter 310]

The fans are entitled to their opinion.

Went to see them v Villa earlier in the season. 0-0 and the football was muck, fuck shelling out for that every week.

Would hate to walk into an interrogation room and see Big Sam waiting. Scary.

[denya 1,661]

All well and good for Bolton, not us. We've never really likes the fat Walrus cunt and nothing's changed.

When you're shelling £50 a pop you want to be entertained not bored shitless.

I refuse to go, be bored shitless and throw money at the club while Allardyce is in charge as I can't bear to watch us lumber around when there's plenty of talented players to play football. My choice of manager would be Eddie Howe. Young, progressive and so far successful.

And I'll give Allardyce some credit. The cupping of the ear and giving it back was spot on. We can give it so we have to take it.

Thats alot of money to be shelling out for football tickets a game! I suppose thats more the boards fault making the prices that high and putting big Sam in charge than Sam himself who is playing a style of football that is more suited to his players than ticka ticka Barcelona style stuff every game, he is there to win football games and he won that one against Hull and as you said he had every right to do that gesture back to the fans but I see your point at the same time as the fans deserve better from the club and not just big Sam.

[East London Loyal 420]

Thats alot of money to be shelling out for football tickets a game! I suppose thats more the boards fault making the prices that high and putting big Sam in charge than Sam himself who is playing a style of football that is more suited to his players than ticka ticka Barcelona style stuff every game, he is there to win football games and he won that one against Hull and as you said he had every right to do that gesture back to the fans but I see your point at the same time as the fans deserve better from the club and not just big Sam.

Nobody is asking for Barcelona style football, but we do our own talented squad a disservice by hoofing it up the pitch hoping Carroll can flick it on or flick it in. Players like Noble, Reid, Diame, Tomkins, Downing and Jarvis can play football.

Allardyce genius has an Italian international on the bench behind Matt Taylor.

Walrus our Howe in, please.

[corkinator 611]

They want the team playing the "west ham way" which is nice pretty passing game and relegation every couple if years!!! Maddies

[AyrshireBlue 449]

Isn't Allardyce something like the 7th highest paid boss in world football?

[Moody Blue Legend 61,463]

Isn't Allardyce something like the 7th highest paid boss in world football?

Widest head in world football.

[East London Loyal 420]

They want the team playing the "west ham way" which is nice pretty passing game and relegation every couple if years!!! Maddies

Worked well enough for a long time. I'm sorry but I don't pay to watch one dimensional no plan b football, I want entertainment for my wedge. If football is just about survival it's fucked and boring.

And look at our last couple of drops and who was in charge. Glen Roader and Avram Grant. Roader's side wasn't relegated because if easy on the eye football and certainly not the talent he had at his disposal, he was just an inept cunt well out of his depth. Trevor Brooking showed him how to run a side in his brief flirts with the job.

Avram Grant was a fucking disaster and I don't know anyone who can understand how he got the job or any job in football. Baron Von Greenback was a car crash and we were inevitably relegated.

The common theme with our drops in the 00s has been bad decisions at board level going for the cheap option and managers who're so out of their depth relegation follows. You don't need to be Nostradamus to see Armageddon when one comes knocking and Grant and Roader we're certainly that.

[simplythebest 11,453]

Worked well enough for a long time. I'm sorry but I don't pay to watch one dimensional no plan b football, I want entertainment for my wedge. If football is just about survival it's fucked and boring.

And look at our last couple of drops and who was in charge. Glen Roader and Avram Grant. Roader's side wasn't relegated because if easy on the eye football and certainly not the talent he had at his disposal, he was just an inept cunt well out of his depth. Trevor Brooking showed him how to run a side in his brief flirts with the job.

Avram Grant was a fucking disaster and I don't know anyone who can understand how he got the job or any job in football. Baron Von Greenback was a car crash and we were inevitably relegated.

The common theme with our drops in the 00s has been bad decisions at board level going for the cheap option and managers who're so out of their depth relegation follows. You don't need to be Nostradamus to see Armageddon when one comes knocking and Grant and Roader we're certainly that.

Allardyce at least provides top flight stability, that's exactly what the owners will want with the Olympic stadium coming up

[East London Loyal 420]

Allardyce at least provides top flight stability, that's exactly what the owners will want with the Olympic stadium coming up

Woopiefuckingdoo!

Plenty of other managers will provide mid table security at the same time as being able to mix it up a bit. Allardyce is a pragmatic boring past it dinosaur cunt.

[simplythebest 11,453]

Woopiefuckingdoo!

Plenty of other managers will provide mid table security at the same time as being able to mix it up a bit. Allardyce is a pragmatic boring past it dinosaur cunt.

Really? Half the league tends to be in a relegation battle these days and West Ham have a bit of a yo yo recent history. I think he's achieving more than you think.

[East London Loyal 420]

Really? Half the league tends to be in a relegation battle these days and West Ham have a bit of a yo yo recent history. I think he's achieving more than you think.

No we don't. Yoyo would imply we're up and down season after season. There were 6 years before we were relegated again and the early 90s before relegation at the end of the 2002/03 season.

Allardyce pragmatism might get results, but it's ugly and not appealing. Might be ok for a tin pot Northern club, but ain't for us. 3rd biggest club in London if history and genuine local support counts, and for the shit we've put up with over the years you'd be hard pressed to find a more loyal bunch of supporters in England.

Let's not forget that Allardyce sets his team up to lose at times but limit goals conceded. Sometimes it surprises us and we don't concede any (see Chelsea away) and sometimes it doesn't (see Man City away.) horrible arrogant manager at a club where he's never been liked or welcome. Decided to shit on our history on arrival.

Eddie Howe please.

[simplythebest 11,453]

No we don't. Yoyo would imply we're up and down season after season. There were 6 years before we were relegated again and the early 90s before relegation at the end of the 2002/03 season.

Allardyce pragmatism might get results, but it's ugly and not appealing. Might be ok for a tin pot Northern club, but ain't for us. 3rd biggest club in London if history and genuine local support counts, and for the shit we've put up with over the years you'd be hard pressed to find a more loyal bunch of supporters in England.

Let's not forget that Allardyce sets his team up to lose at times but limit goals conceded. Sometimes it surprises us and we don't concede any (see Chelsea away) and sometimes it doesn't (see Man City away.) horrible arrogant manager at a club where he's never been liked or welcome. Decided to shit on our history on arrival.

Eddie Howe please.

No real issues with West Ham mate but I think you're massively over stating the club's ability, imo.

[East London Loyal 420]

I appreciate that mate and from the outside looking in you might see us as ungrateful toward Allardyce. But the relationship has been rocky for the first day he walked in and marginally improved going before dipping again

As for the size of the club, our catchment area is fairly large. East London, South East London, Essex and Kent have always had large West Ham support. Everywhere I go in the south of England West Ham are found and we've apparently got 500,000 registered supporters. Spurs and Arsenal are by far bigger and better supported clubs, but that by no means makes us small. Who knows what success could bring us in terms of plastics, maybe we could emulate Chelsea.

[simplythebest 11,453]

I appreciate that mate and from the outside looking in you might see us as ungrateful toward Allardyce. But the relationship has been rocky for the first day he walked in and marginally improved going before dipping again

As for the size of the club, our catchment area is fairly large. East London, South East London, Essex and Kent have always had large West Ham support. Everywhere I go in the south of England West Ham are found and we've apparently got 500,000 registered supporters. Spurs and Arsenal are by far bigger and better supported clubs, but that by no means makes us small. Who knows what success could bring us in terms of plastics, maybe we could emulate Chelsea.

I get all that but it seems to me West Ham have nearly always underachieved and not really kicked on, hardly just an issue with the current manager.

I know the relationship with Allardyce has been difficult from the start which is why I sort of think he'd have needed to do something incredible like win the league to really win the West Ham fans over. I even felt his Bolton side gradually got better style wise and he brought in some class players like Campo, Okocha, Anelka, I just think unless there's a really brilliant replacement out there you'd be best sticking.

I agree with the philosophy that football should be about entertainment but at the same time there's so much financial implication staying in the Premier League these days the likes of Gold and Sullivan probably just say stay up by any means necessary.

[East London Loyal 420]

Simplythebest - Martin Samuels two pence below

West Ham fans have right to expect better football

What an ungrateful lot. Sam Allardyce, manager of West Ham United, was positively indignant.

‘I started at 16, got into the first-team at 18, I’m 59 now and I’ve never been in a place where I’ve won and got booed,’ he said. Since when, many have rallied to his cause.

Kenny Dalglish said that if the fans wanted better football, the board needed to invest in better players, which is a little confusing considering two of those bought during Allardyce’s tenure, Andy Carroll and Stewart Downing, cost Liverpool a combined £55million when Dalglish was manager.

And that’s the point, really. West Ham’s board have backed Allardyce. Carroll cost £15.5m (the club record), Downing £6m, Matt Jarvis £10.75m (a club record at the time), Modibo Maiga £5m and Kevin Nolan £3.5m in the Championship

For that kind of outlay, Allardyce is not going to get chaired shoulder-high for keeping a club up with gruesome football. He is no underdog. For the money spent, West Ham should be exactly where they are now — Allardyce is scrambling par.

He got booed on Wednesday night because West Ham were second best for much of the game against a Hull City team who had their goalkeeper sent off, unjustly, after 23 minutes. West Ham won through a deflected own goal.

It was explained that, knowing Hull, Allardyce had picked a team for a low-scoring match. One problem with that: Hull had scored 22 away goals going into the fixture, West Ham 18. Hull had also played fewer away games.

So call it Tony Pulis syndrome: the moment of realisation that the end does not always justify the means.

Pulis did a magnificent job at Stoke City. When he went there, the club had just finished 13th in the Championship. He got them into the Premier League within two seasons and remained there.

He reached the FA Cup final, the knockout stages of the Europa League and finished as high as 11th.

The Leeds United Supporters Trust are now lobbying the Football League for their club to be made a special case as it plunges towards financial oblivion.

The owners cannot now meet the wages after the collapse of the Massimo Cellino takeover, and LUST wish for this to be classified a force majeure — an event beyond the control of the club.

It is no such thing. If Elland Road falls into a sinkhole, it is a force majeure. If the team bus is hit by a falling meteorite it is a force majeure.

If your owners are skint, try to sell to a crook, and fail, it is a rotten business plan, no more.

Yet, having come 13th last season, he was sacked, and few mourned. Why? Stoke had reached a level of expenditure such that the supporters expected better football.

They weren’t happy with the direct, physical style any more. Mark Hughes was the perfect replacement. His teams were combative, too, but with a little more finesse.

Pulis is now at Crystal Palace, where he is doing another superb job; and the fans love him because survival is the sole motive.

That was the case at West Ham last season, but now the fans expect more. Not much more, not true glory or a cascade of trophies, but football that suggests progress, not a treadmill of grim battles.

West Ham’s front three of Carroll, Downing and Jarvis cost £32.25m; Liverpool’s front three of Luis Suarez, Daniel Sturridge and Raheem Sterling cost £35.4m. To argue that West Ham’s owners are in some way cheap, therefore, is ridiculous.

Allardyce’s supporters ask if West Ham fans would rather go down, as if that is the only option: Sam or death. Yet Brendan Rodgers did not play Allardyce’s way at Swansea City, and Southampton don’t play that way, and nor does Alan Pardew at Newcastle United, and these are all clubs who have at times been threatened with relegation, yet survived playing expansive football.

It is not West Ham’s owners, or the fans, who need to raise their game.

Martin Samuel is a West Ham fan, but because of his job his head will rule over his heart and knowing this, the article posted is a perfect summarisation of Sam Allardyce.

[BlueSuedeSambas 53,781]

Considering a large number of our fans are fairly vocal on here about the poor standard of football we churn out, I thought they would be a lot more sympathetic towards the west ham fans desire for a more aesthetically pleasing brand of football.

You obviously can't compare the standard of football that the two clubs play against but the principals are the same.

[WilliamFyfe 1,438]

Any photos of fat Sam?

[simplythebest 11,453]

Considering a large number of our fans are fairly vocal on here about the poor standard of football we churn out, I thought they would be a lot more sympathetic towards the west ham fans desire for a more aesthetically pleasing brand of football.

You obviously can't compare the standard of football that the two clubs play against but the principals are the same.

I noted that I agree football should be about entertainment, but you say yourself we're in vastly different situations.

Although I do think Allardyce has a reputation and that his football isn't always as bad as is made out

[G.E.C. 18,768]

I remember Paul Robinson's goalkicks when he was in charge of them.

[MasterD 7,435]

Hope they go down the route of bringing in a foreign manager who supposedly plays "good football", then they get relegated

[simplythebest 11,453]

Diame off for Roger Johnson, they'll love this

[graeme_4 34,505]

I like Allardyce, purely for the hugely exaggerated fake laugh at Chico Flores for diving. Absolutely brilliant.

[LegendofCoop 17,273]

I like Allardyce, purely for the hugely exaggerated fake laugh at Chico Flores for diving. Absolutely brilliant.

This one? Peach!!!