Spitting games

Diouf. Dioufy. Dioufy-wioufy. Call him what you want, Sam - El-Hadj Diouf is still the most hated player in British football. Rarely are West Ham fans united by a common view. The proposed Stratford move is testament to that. But the potential signing of the Senegalese appears to have broken the mould.

“Knowing someone like Dioufy, I just have to let him get fit and see if he looks in good condition when he trains with us,” said Allardyce . “There is something missing from our squad and Diouf could be that missing link.”

Going in to this weekend’s games, only two teams had scored more than West Ham, so that missing link does not appear to be goals. Indeed, Dioufy’s goalscoring record is about as impressive as that of Titi Camara, another Liverpool flop inflicted on West Ham with dire consequences.

At Liverpool he scored once in every 13 games, at Bolton (excluding his loan spell) once every 7 games, at both Blackburn and Rangers once every 15 games. At Sunderland, he failed to score in 14 games before the Mackems gave up on him. The only time he has ever been prolific was during his 27-game loan spell at Bolton, where he was effectively playing for a permanent contract. That tells you a lot about his motivation.

So what else does he bring to the table? Dioufy apologists (which so far as I know number Mrs Diouf and Sam Allardyce) would argue that defences hate to play against him. His cynical gamesmanship, such as blocking goalkeepers from set pieces, may infuriate opposition fans, but that it does so, is perhaps testament to its effectiveness.

Such bending of the rules has become ever more prevalent during the ten years that he has plied his trade in Blighty. In this respect, Kevin Nolan is hardly an angel. Few objections were raised at his arrival in east London (except perhaps from his wife). But for Diouf, the mud has stuck.

Allardyce sees his short-term remit in straightforward terms: to get West Ham promoted. In his mind, it is illogical to jeopardise this by rejecting a player that he believes to be “quality”, just because people don’t like him as a person. And let’s face it, while his “quality” is very much up for debate, this is not what West Ham fans are up in arms about. It is the fact that Diouf has a history of spitting at players and supporters. Including those of West Ham.

In 2002, he was accused of spitting at West Ham fans while warming up as a substitute for Liverpool during a game at Anfield. Although Merseyside Police found no evidence that an offence had been committed, the incident was deemed serious enough for Liverpool to issue an apology to West Ham. This was the start of things to come.

In 2003, he was fined two weeks’ wages and banned for two games for spitting at Celtic fans. He also pled guilty to a charge of assault. In 2004, he was again charged by police for spitting at an 11-year-old Middlesbrough fan. Just weeks later, he spat at Portsmouth player, Arjan de Zeeuw. In addition, there have been allegations of telling an Everton ballboy to “fuck off, white boy”, as well as taunting QPR’s Jamie Mackie, as he lay on the pitch with a broken leg.

Hammers fans have reacted with fury to the idea that this behaviour could soon be played out at Upton Park. Some of the responses, as is the wont of a minority of West Ham fans, have been needlessly over the top. It is not necessary to cite Bobby Moore, in order to argue persuasively that Diouf should not be seen in claret and blue.

West Ham do not possess a moral superiority lacking in other clubs. 95% of football fans would not want Diouf anywhere near their club. Allardyce, however, is banking on the fickleness of the typical football fan. He may be in for a shock. Adebayor-loving Tottenham Hotspur we are not.

“As most of the fans have taken to him everywhere he’s been, [West Ham fans will] love him”, he said. Did Blackburn fans love him? Liverpool and Sunderland fans unquestionably did not. At Bolton, the fans did take to him. It is the assumption that West Ham and Bolton fans are no different, that is Allardyce’s blindspot.

Given Bolton’s limited resources and fanbase, merely by being above the Premier League relegation scrap - let alone in the Europa League - they have been punching above their weight. It is for this reason that their supporters, like Stoke fans, do not simply tolerate the ugly side of football; they embrace it. To the tune of Tony Christie’s ‘Amarillo’ (such are the cultural reference points of Bolton fans) their supporters would sing, “El-Hadj Diouf will spit on you”. Would that happen at Upton Park? Not in a month of Europa League-necessitated Sundays.

It says a lot about Allardyce’s mindset that he is happy to endure the inevitable backlash over a player who in reality is anything but quality. Despite bemoaning the rough treatment he received at the hands of Newcastle and their fans, he refuses to take any lessons from the experience. Like the Geordies, West Ham fans see the game as being about more than just the three points. By ignoring this fact, Allardyce is leaving himself little slack, should results start to take a turn for the worse.

He is clearly banking on West Ham fans rallying behind Dioufy once they come up against opposition fans taunting a player in claret and blue. Indeed, West Ham fans are not immune to backing a bad boy, Craig Bellamy and Lee Bowyer being more recent examples. If he turns in a few good performances and bags some important goals, the fans may learn to tolerate him. That is a big if, and it is very much a best-case scenario.

Even more baffling, is that he would choose to do this at a time when we are spolit for attacking options. John Carew and Sam Baldock are Sam’s own signings and have made promising starts. Frederic Piquionne and Carlton Cole are proven in the Premier League, let alone the Championship. The interest in Diouf suggests not that this would be an emergency signing, but that he would be an integral piece in creating a typical Allardyce team.

Fans have so far tolerated a more direct style of football, a concern that Allardyce addressed when he joined the club by saying: “I can modify the module for the particular culture and the way of playing”. It was classic Allardyce management speak, but the implication was clear: West Ham will not be Bolton Mark II. The signing of Diouf would betray this suggestion of pragmatism as a lie.

The cynical West Ham fans will proclaim this as proof of a leopard not changing its spots. The majority of fans, who want Allardyce to succeed, will be left to despair.

Follow Love In The Time Of Collison @OnWestHam

House of cards

When the final whistle blew on Saturday afternoon, Upton Park was almost half empty. Not because fans had walked away in disgust, but because of the opportunity that a 4-0 lead afforded them to avoid the gridlock that is E13 on matchdays (see above). Last week, the chance to move to Stratford and escape that gridlock for ever suddenly became a distant dream.

A week ago, West Ham fans woke to a familiarly depressing outcome. It was only two years ago that we were hit with the bombshell that our Icelandic owners had caved to Kevin McCabe’s media-backed whining, by agreeing to compensate Sheffield United to the tune of £20m. This time it was the Government caving to the whining of Daniel Levy and Barry Hearn.

As a West Ham fan, getting your head round this latest disappointment is made all the more challenging by the fact that everyone involved with this saga is talking utter rubbish. Karren Brady got the ball rolling last Tuesday when she declared, “We understand Ministers will make a statement later and will not pre-empt that”, before going on to do exactly that.

When the Sports Minister, Hugh Robertson, did speak, it was to claim that: “The key point is the action we have taken today is about removing the uncertainty”, ignoring the fact that no-one has any idea how this will all end.

Barry Hearn declared that he “couldn’t be happier if we had beaten West Ham in the Cup final”, underlying that his preoccupation is not with football, but with a fight for the sake of a fight. The money generated by last season’s FA Cup run presumably now sits in the bank account of Leyton Orient’s solicitors. O’s fans, whose team sit in the League One relegation zone, must be a tad frustrated that this money could not be invested in new players.

The newspapers reporting the story were no better. The Telegraph refused to acknowledge the existence of the Boelyn Ground by declaring West Ham ‘homeless’. But a day of bullshit would not be complete without Boris having his say.

“I believe it will also put us in the place where we always intended to be - delivering a lasting sustainable legacy for the stadium backed up by a robust but flexible business plan that provides a very good return to the taxpayer”. How £2m annual income for a stadium that cost £500m - and will incur £50m conversion costs and £5m annual running costs - is anyone’s guess.

The only way to wade through this balderdash, is to question Hearn and Levy’s winning argument: that £40m of funding from Newham Council is, under EU law, illegal state aid.

While it may be tempting to rail at Barry Hearn’s lack of class, Daniel Levy’s spitefulness and EU bureaucracy, the rule regarding state aid does not seem without logic and, fair or not, are there not people on West Ham’s payroll who are employed for their legal expertise?

If the rates that Newham were going to charge us were - as is claimed by the club - ‘commercial’ and not preferential, then why did we not seek the financing elsewhere? Had we done so, Hearn and Levy would have had no case and the keys to the Olympic Stadium would be ours.

It is this same kind of fuzzy thinking that got us into hot water over the signings of Tevez and Mascherano and which may get us in to further transfer-related trouble, as we refuse to pay a small Danish club Winston Reid’s transfer fee, in a tit-for-tat protest over Brescia’s inability to pay Alessandro Diamanti’s transfer fee – an issue that clearly has nothing to do with FC Midtjylland.

Brescia may be in the wrong (although their zero valuation of Diamanti seems accurate) but ripping off a completely innocent Danish club is completely perverse. It’s what cowboys do. And that is how our club is run.

For once, can we not get our own house in order before seeking to blame others. As regards the Diamanti situation, here’s an idea: why not demand the transfer fee up front. In a post-Lehmann Brothers world, that would seem the prudent thing to have done.

David Gold may be many fans’ flavour of the month right now, owing to his love of a retweet, but his tenure at West Ham to date has been nothing short of a disaster. Feeding the fans stories through the media about the return of Carlos Tevez is a great way of papering over the fact. Might it not be an idea to shelve the idea of us signing a prima donna that we cannot afford, and focus on the basics of running a business?

Saturday’s half-time entertainment came in the shape of the club’s new ‘Matchday Lotto’ – an alternative revenue stream that even League Two fans would wince at. There seems to be a feeling of chance to everything the club does right now. Act first. Ask questions later.

The club’s enthusiasm at the prospect of being Manchester City-style tenants in the Olympic Stadium may be well placed, and there may yet be a happy ending. But will the club put in place all the necessary controls to ensure that happy ending materialises with no further controversy? Don’t bet on it.

Follow Love In The Time Of Collison @OnWestHam