Friday, April 3

Striker light

Carlton Cole's out for six weeks after his England groin strain, which effectively means the rest of the season. As we have no alternative target man, Carlton's injury is a disaster for the Hammers. The only hope is that Dyer suddenly starts to play regularly, Freddie puts on two stone and Tristan rediscovers his YouTube form. Or maybe we could play Boa Morte up front as at least he's strong and gets stuck in. He confuses us, so imagine the effect he'll have on John Terry.

We're already missing Behrami and Collison, with Di Michele and Kovac failing to convince in recent games. Suspect we'll be helping a lot of teams stay up in our final eight games... we could help to save Sunderland, Stoke and Boro while boosting the European hopes of Chelsea, Spurs, Villa, Liverpool and Everton. So there's a lot to play for.

Maybe Zola needs to become tougher too. He's said Cole was not fully fit for the England game but he did not want to deny him the chance to play for his country. Can you imagine Ferguson doing that?

Thinking about it, there was the time Tommy Taylor and then Alvin Martin played up front for the Hammers. James Collins as centre-forward anyone?

3 comments:

Matt said...

And more recently Ian Pearce, who scored a couple in the relegation season. Not to mention Les Sealey, of course. I would rather see Zola play a proven striking talent who can take a mean free kick and looks much fitter than Tristan - ie Zola...

Pete May said...

Wonder if he's still registered as a player... he still looks fit. Otherwise we could always bring Billy Bonds out of retirement as emergency striker.

Matt said...

He played for a, um, Ch****a Legends team in a testamonial this week and stormed it, according to the local paper.

"Gianfranco Zola hit a hat-trick as a Chelsea Legends XI beat a Swindon Town XI 3-2 in Christian Roberts’ testimonial last night at the County Ground.

More than 3,100 people saw the little Italian magician fire home a treble as stars from the past and present turned out in honour of the Welsh forward, who was forced to retire last September through a knee injury.

And for Roberts it was the perfect end to a career that was cut short at the age of 28.

“Gianfranco Zola tonight showed how football should be played – with a smile on his face."

Other C*****a "legends" included Le Saux, Wise, Di Matteo, Ken monkou, someone called S Worrell and one Kevin Keen...