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Defensive UpheavalSubmitted by moore2come on 16 May, 2008 - 04:42.
According to several newspaper reports today, Curbs has lost patience with Anton Ferdinand and decided to spend 6mil replacing him with Richard Dunne from Man City. Why? I know Anton has not been the most obedient of players, his jaunt to USA for his b'day showed that, but this kid at 23yrs old has the potential to go all the way. Dunne is fast approaching the twighlight years of his career and any injuries he picks up would take longer to heal. I just don't understand this logic. Is Curbs doing a Harry and flooding the squad with over 28yr olds cos the kids are too hard to manage? Does he want the easy life? Or is he a complete idiot when it comes to transfers and we can expect to see all our budding stars heading for the exit door, only to be replaced by ageing, injury prone mercenaries looking for a big pay day. I'm at a loss to fathom this, anyone got any idea?
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I think that Dunne would be
I think that Dunne would be a great signing BUT only if Ferdinand stays.I think Dunne and Upson plus Neil in our back line would so slow,Ferdinand should be our future.Im not reading too much into the transfer gossip we,ll have to wait and see as i don't believe anything unless the transfer targets are holding up a West ham shirt.CJ
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Good post M2C. Yes it is just paper talk so far but so what? This is just blog talk. If we're not going to discuss the rumours, what are we going to discuss? Sadly, this would be an all too typical Curbishley signing. Dunne is competent, nothing more, and is not getting any younger. Happily, I would be very surprised if he was willing to join. Why would he? One of those situations where it would be a bad move for both the player and the club in my opinion.
M2C and Bas-I, if you're gonna get your knickers in a twist over every newspaper story, you've got a long hard summer coming up! Dave, disagree with you over Anton, I think he can become very good for us, time will tell. If we're going to raid Citeh during their upheaval, let's make a cheeky bid for Richards! On a more realistic note, how about Bojinov? Young, very skillful and most important of all, injured! I was hoping that we'd sign him last summer. I've only seen bits and bobs of him, but I think he's got bags of potential.
AIH i hardly find myself getting my nickers in a twist, merely gave my opinion on a topic that was bought up on here, whether its tabloid rumour or not!
Apologies mate, wasn't trying to insinuate an over reaction... I'm hoping that there is nothing in the Dunne story and I'm pretty sure we'll have a fair few more 'scraping the bottom of the barrell' stories over summer.
Make you right there, wouldn't be a west ham summer if we weren't linked with every player and his grandma yet sign none of them!!!
I take all newspaper reports with a pinch of salt but the fact is Anton is a liability for the team and himself. He is vastly overrated and would be no great loss. We have two much better central defenders in Collins and Gabs and also could move Neill into the middle where I think he is more suited. All
could partner Upson who must now be first choice central defender. We have Davenport and Tompkins who could be bit part squad players so have no need for Dunne. 6 mill ( an alleged offer by Spuds) for Anton is way OTT so if thats the offer then snatch the money and laugh all the way to the bank. Personally I can't see any Prem team offering that sort of money for him because he ain't good enough so I just accept it's newspaper space filler.
Got to disagree there Dave. Fair enough three 4-0 defeats on the spin was tough to take but to blame Anton for that is a little shortsighted! It's pretty much agreed on here that Neill has been at fault for a number of our goals this season, Green has been good but not great, McCartney is not the greatest LB, so you take the defeats as a unit. Anton's pace is a good foil for Upson's solid displays. Davenport is one of Pard's bad buys, Tomkins is not ready, Collins is out until at least xmas, Gabbidon is not the sure footed mountain goat many believe and then there's Spector; not good enough full stop. Selling Ferdinand would be yet another mistake by the club and would cause some unrest amongst supporters across the land. We've lost too many players on the cheap, Cole, Carrick, Johnson, Defoe, losing another would be a bit too much to swallow
I'm not the one being shortsighted, the three 0-4 defeats merely highlighting the whole of Anton's history with West Ham. Check out our defensive history over his whole playing career whilst he is in the team and our history without him in the team. It doesn't make good reading. I also said in my post that Neill should be moved into the middle as I agree he could be held for some of our goals conceded. I never said McCartney was the greatest LB either, merely stating that the names being touted here (particularly Shorey) aren't that much better. As it happens I also thought it was Curbs who bought Davenport. Pards only loaned him and S***s recalled him and I also stated that he was to be used as a bit part squad player. In defence of Green he started the season very well. A goalkeeper needs to have confidence in his defence and funnily enough Anton didn't play many games at the start did he? All went to pot when he came back and PLEASE dont throw the goal against Man Utd at me. It was one goal thats all.I think we tend to get blinkered when we talk about one of our own players from the ranks. Take Joe Cole. Look how many games we lost in our relegation year with him in the side and how many we didn't lose when he was out injured.
I've already done this once before and I'm not going to do it again but all the dates are here for you http://www.westhamstats.info/westham.php?west=2&ham=772&united=Anton_Fer... if you are that way inclined to check it out yourself. A quick check for this season to bring me up to date reveals that we lost 12 games with Ferdinand (including the three 0-4's) and only 5 with him out.
I've done the research. He makes a postive difference - we have won 5% more games with him in the team than when he is out.
I totally agree M2C, since Anton came back from his injury and court case i thought he played very well and the times when we have looked our best defensively has been when Upson and Anton were playing together. I think he's got the potential to go a long way. Also if you look back at when Rio played for us at the same sort of age he made a lot more mistakes than what Anton does. This all strikes me of deja vu, last year we got rid of players and didn't replace them if curbs hasn't got a top quality centre half lined up to replace him i think selling him would be suicide, upson needs a speedy centre half along side him so that rules collins out, is gabbidon going to stay fit? who does that leave..Tomkins, I'm sorry but no way is he ready yet, makes too many mistakes and is a very long way off being the finished article. If Anton is sold and no replacement bought in i just think it will be another example of our managers incompetence.
Upson and Anton looked our best defensively? I take it you didn't go to the three 0-4 defeats on the spin then? I was at the Chelsea and Spuds games. Fortunately missed the 'Pool game
and who was the defensive duo for most of the games when we had the best defensive record outside of the top 4 for a significant part of the season? I went to all 3 games and agreed anton didnt play very well, but theres 38 games in a season and antons played in a lot more than 3 games! Upson is 1st choice centre half, collins is too slow to partner him and his career with us seems to have been blighted by injury. Gabbidon has been out most of the season and whos to say he will ever get back to full fitness and perform as good as he did in our first season up. Tomkins is far too inexperienced and makes far too many mistakes to be thrown in full time and i've seen a P&O ferry turn quicker than lucas neill. In my opinion anton and upson could be a great central defensive duo if both stay fit!
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