West Ham Fans Born to be Claret and Blue

Hammered - Where To Now For West Ham? To the Fizzy League more likely than not, for the first time in years we didn’t review a match, namely the home defeat on Boxing Day against Manchester City, the reasoning was that there was no point in writing a negative article ahead of another crucial game. On reflection it would obviously have been better to have been able to miss out this match review. West Ham’s new owners were very keen to talk up the possibility of Champions League football when they arrived; it appears that something was lost in the translation and that what they really meant was The Championship. The hasty sacking of Alan Pardew is looking ever more rash in the light of the abject surrender and humiliating defeat that new manager Alan Curbishley oversaw as his team crashed to a six nil spanking by Steve Coppell’s newly promoted Reading. To be four goals down in less than forty minutes shows just how far the team has disintegrated from last season’s over performers, Curbishley’s refusal to start Carlos Tevez had some wags with gallows humour singing “you’re using Pardew’s notes!”, perhaps Pardew is actually using Les Reeds notes at the moment, if Charlton win their game in hand they will overtake Hammers leaving only Watford below. It is hard to be in any way optimistic; there were no glimmers no hints of anything bright to shine and no lights at the end of neither the tunnel nor the beginning of it either. Most Hammers fans have seen their team on the receiving end of a tonking in the past, but the feebleness of today’s performance ranks right down there, in over forty years as a Hammer, this writer has never witnessed such rubbish, the team selection was crap, the tactics forlorn and the players deserve to be shot, the luckiest of which was Lee Bowyer, who was fortunate enough to have his shoulder dislocated and had to be substituted. It is hoped that the players will be driven somewhere quiet and then have their eyes kept open (a la Clockwork Orange) while they are forced to watch the entire match again, because that is all the majority of them were doing, just watching. Those fans who made the effort to travel to the Madjeski Stadium who also watched will probably think that it was a fund raising Panto, Paul Konchesky was playing as a forward at times and we are sure Alan Curbishley kept turning round when people said “look behind you”, his nose was definitely glowing and he did have the wicked witch behind him, Ice Pick in hand, which begs the question, will Egg on his face Magnusson and his henchman do a ‘Charlton’ on Curbs? Brynjar Gunnarsson nodded in Nicky Shorey's free-kick for Reading’s opener and Stephen Hunt's header doubled the lead, Anton Ferdinand headed an own goal to make it 3-0 inside 30 minutes before Kevin Doyle smashed home a fourth. After the break Leroy Lita slotted in a fifth on 53 minutes before Doyle headed in Shorey's corner to complete a shocking defeat, not in its result, but in the manner of it. Curbishley could be looking for a wholesale defence change in the January transfer window if he remains manager. The flood gates opened on 12 minutes when Danny Gabbidon's amateur hold on Doyle led to Reading's opener. Shorey whipped the resulting free kick high into the box, where Gunnarsson rose to nod past Rob Green. Just three minutes later, Hunt was somehow allowed to find enough space to comfortably head home Sidwell's cross. Anton Ferdinand soon added to the misery when he bundled in another Shorey free kick, needlessly conceded, to hand Reading a 3-0 lead after half an hour. Hammers inability to deal with set pieces was coupled with a sense of I don’t want to be here, a sentiment shared by the shell shocked travelling faithful And, unbelievable as it was, Reading added a fourth when a mazy run through the middle from Shorey set free Harper, who knocked the ball to Doyle to slot home. From an attacking point of view, Hammers had done sod all in the first 45 minutes and a reshuffle saw Marlon Harewood replaced by defender Jonathan Spector at half-time, leaving Bobby Zamora to chase down four goals on his own. After a slow start to the second half, Reading conjured another goal out of nothing. Sidwell again provided a cross into the box for Lita, who side footed the ball under Green for the fifth on the 53rd minute. Lita nearly added a second when he met substitute John Oster's cross, only for Green to clear any danger and he got down well again to smartly save from Doyle, Hammers attacks were very lame and what breakthroughs Newton or Nigel Reo-Coker could muster petered out into offside decisions for Yossi Benayoun and Ferdinand. Many of the faithful were pouring out of the ground when Doyle nodded in Shorey's corner to make it six for the Royals and compound the agony... Z Man came as close to scoring as he got all match in the dying minutes when he clipped the bar. Here’s what the managers had to say in the post match: Steve Coppell: "I knew it was a real test physically and that's why the performance was surprising as it has been so demanding for us recently. "I didn't think the players would go to the well again or have the legs for it. "But once we scored the first goal it was our best spell of football since I've been here. They were creative and wanted to be on the front foot." Alan Curbishley: "This hasn't just happened and the players have to realize a couple of things very quickly. "They have not scored a lot of goals and it is a confidence thing. But how do you get it back? By winning games. "We couldn't live with Reading but we have to rally around now and get three-pointers. We need to pick up points to give ourselves a chance." Reading: Hahnemann, Gunnarsson, Ingimarsson, Sonko (Bikey 54), Shorey, Little (Oster 54), Sidwell, Harper (Ki-Hyeon 71), Hunt, Doyle, Lita. Subs Not Used: Federici, Long. Booked: Harper. Goals: Gunnarsson 12, Hunt 15, Ferdinand 30 og, Doyle 36, Lita 53, Doyle 78. West Ham: Green, Dailly, Ferdinand, Gabbidon, Konchesky, Bowyer (Newton 19), Reo-Coker, Mullins, Benayoun (Cole 78), Harewood (Spector 46), Zamora. Subs Not Used: Carroll, Tevez. Attendance: 24,073 Referee: L Mason (Lancashire).