Those who talk rubbish, risk being struck down!

This isn’t so much a new me or a change to this blog, I don’t do “New Me’s” or New Year’s resolutions. But there are going to be changes, in the blog and in life (watch this space)! To me the New Year is the same as the old one. Except for this one is a European Championship year (no birthdays, weddings or christenings in June or July please). And I’m getting married at the end of it. I’ve decided I need to do something about my growing waistline, which has basically been moving in the same direction since we had our first child Noah (aka West Ham’s bad luck charm) last November. So it’s plenty more running and my own take on the caveman diet in 2016, but more procrastination and sarcasm when it comes to this blog. I can’t wait!!

As for the football, West Ham are doing OK. Many will say we’ve followed the same pattern as last year, a great start to the season with some notable scalps, which then tailed off post November. There is a difference though, the difference is you can see we’re trying new things and players like Payet and Lanzini have added freshness to our attacking play. In many areas we still have the same personnel as last season and as a result have shown our limitations, notably with our defensive displays against Bournemouth and Tottenham. I suppose we now just have to see who comes in in January and whether we can put in an impressive finish to our last season at The Boleyn Ground.

On the subject of transfers it’s now January, as you will have guessed from all of the faux philosophical statuses on social media, which means one thing. The transfer window is open! Barcelona can now sign players (because they desperately need to don’t they); Arsenal won’t sign anyone, despite all of their fans pleading for the capture of Draxler or Benzema or the new Draxler/Benzema; and West Ham (not just West Ham all the other mid ranking Premier League teams) will panic loan an extra 3 has been’s, or never were’s until the end of the Season, see Nikita Jelavic aka the shit version of Andy Carroll (I hope he’s on loan).

Leicester are top! Well they’re not anymore; they’re 2^nd on goal difference. But regardless, that’s quite an achievement for a club who were bottom of the Premier League this time last year. Personally I’d love Leicester to win the league. It would give me the hope that the disparity that has been created between the big and small clubs, in the last 25 years since the advent of the Premier League, Champions League and all that Sky Money, is starting to even out. Fingers crossed…!

Finally if there is anything that the first 4/5 months of the season has taught me; other than the fact that Mourinho is actually mental and LVG hasn’t been good since that Ajax team; it is that in a world were Leicester City are the best team in the country, as a wise man once said… “Chat sh*t, get banged!”

It's back!

The football's back, I think I'm finally over the World Cup, actually it's probably best we don't talk about the World Cup (you know, it's a bit of a faux pas to talk about your ex on a first date). The football season started last week for me with Reims v PSG in Ligue 1 on Friday, involved a bit of Ajax v Vitesse on Sunday and finally finished with the 2nd half of the Charity Community Shield (I missed the 1st half because I'd totally forgotten it was on). And now this week I'm off to The Boleyn for our first game of the season against Sp*rs, and I'm petrified. I just can't see how we'll get anything out of the game, not after beating them 3 times last year, and then there's all these West Ham fans I keep seeing online, "giving it" like it will be a walkover for us. I'm ashamed to admit it, but they're acting like Sp*rs fans. Touch wood we'll at least get a draw tomorrow and then I don't have to watch that game for another season (I really don't enjoy Sp*rs at home).

Everywhere I look there are previews of the season to come so I thought I'd do my own. Here's 10 things that you may (or may not) see this season.

Manchester United will be good again
I actually found it a bit uncomfortable with them being so bad last year. Especially when all the Liverpool lovers were lording it up. I expect to see an improvement from last year's showing at Old Trafford, not because I think David Moyes is the terrible manager that the media have made him out to be, or because Louis Van Gaal is the knight in shining armour that is also being painted. But because they can only get better, surely. That squad failed last year because it was terrible, not just because of Cleverly or Fellaini, because Fergie had neglected it for a couple of seasons. So this year what's different? Well they have Mata for a whole season and Ander Herrera from my beloved Athletic Club. Plus a fresh pair of scowling, hardened, taking no sh*t, eyes steering the ship in the form of the aforementioned "LVG". Surely they can't be that bad again this year right? Surely!

Arsenal go through the same cycle
We see it every year, they'll have a period where they play amazingly and people start saying, "Oooh! Are they dark horses for the title?" Sanchez will link up with Oeeeeeeeeeeeeerzil, Ramsey, Wilshere, Rosicky, Podolski,  Carzola, Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ger-nab-ry and any other attacking midfielder/not quite a centre forward that they have and they'll look unbeatable. Then they'll have that month, the month that everyone's been saying is coming up, the one that's "a true test of their title credentials". The month where they play Man United, Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool in the cup, Bayern Munich in the Champions League, the Sega Team for Virtua striker and Pele and his crew from Escape to Victory. And they'll lose every one of those key games, which will make all the Sp*rs fans happy (and Facebook will blow up with Arsenal jokes). Then they'll get their sh*t together, put together a decent run and finish 4th. Why don't we just give them 77 points now and say they've finished 4th?

I couldn't find a picture of Micah Richards' bum, and if I'm being honest, felt a little uncomfortable searching for one. Take my word for it, it's huge!

Micah Ricahrds finally gets his chance?
Nah, he'll never get any games for City! Everyone knows Zabaleta has got right back locked down. Maybe he'll finally move on? Maybe this year Richards will do something else, like beat Kim Kardashian (and Hulk) to the title of Rear of the Year? And Jimmy Floyd Hasslebank will look on, wondering what might have been, had he still been in the public spotlight... Weird thought, I know. But Richards isn't getting anywhere near that City team and he does have a big a*se. There's more chance of the rear of the year thing happening!

Kim isn't gonna go down without a fight!

West Ham are average
At best! Is Enner Valencia going to score a ton of goals? Or maybe Mauro Zarate? Doubt it. We'll probably have given up on them come the end of November and it will be good old loyal Carlton Cole up top or even worse, the famed 4-6-0! Fingers crossed something decent will happen.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic's powers will start to decline
He took 7 minutes to open his account last week against Reims. And he ended up with a second by the end of the game. The guy is just phenomenal and he's now 33! Surely there'll be a season soon where he doesn't score 20+ goals. Is this going to be it, or is the French league too weak for the fact that he's the wrong side of 30 to matter at the moment? Watch this space, I think he's got another good season left in him.

Great to see Ashley fitting in already (far left)

Ashley Cole will tear it up in Italy
Another player who is 33 (the same age as me, god I'm old for a footballer) is Cashley. Who has decided to make the bold move of going to Roma. Fair play to him, I reckon there's still a season or two left in him and he could potentially do the business in a side that performed VERY well last year. Will he thrive though? Will the Curva Sud (I think Romanistas have the Curva Sud) be singing his name, like the Curva Nord did 20 odd years ago with a certain Paul Gascoinge? Will he be able to handle the intense Italian media? Will he even learn Italian (from what I've seen in the past he's just about got the hang of English)? I'm saying I think he will! I think Roma might win the league this year, down to their signings and Juventus being Conte-less/Allegri-full, come on Ashley show us that you're still a decent giocatore (that's Italian for "player" that is, you can have that one for free Mr Cole)!

I will watch the Eredivise in it's entirety
I'm not 100% sure this will happen, what with baby commitments and other leagues to watch, but for some reason last week I was a little drawn to that Ajax game. I found myself thinking, "You should watch this league more often.." Maybe I will, maybe I'll learn who the good and not so good players are (I pretty much knew NOBODY in the Ajax side until Daley Blind came off the bench). Let's say I will!

I still won't watch the German league
Screw that! I read an article the other day entitled, "Are you a Football Hipster?" and I can safely say I'm not as one of the main qualifiers was having a love for the Bundesliga. I appreciate that the German league has more goals, bigger attendances and some of the best players in Europe in it, but I just can't get on board. This must be how people who hate Italian football feel about Serie A.

Fernando Torres will start scoring goals again
Yeeeeeeeeeeah right! I'm also calling the Diego Costa signing not turning out the way Chelsea expected right now too. Nice and early!

Atletico Madrid will win back to back titles
We can dream. Barcelona and Madrid's response to not winning the league for the 1st time in like 20 years was to sign the best player from the World Cup just gone (Oh the World Cup! My beloved World Cup, I miss you! *sobs into a some tissues*) and the best player in the Premier League last season. Those guys are hurting! I can remember sweating like I was an Atleti fan last year towards the end of the season as they limped over the line in first place, having run out of steam. What are they going to do this year? Hopefully they'll sign Reus to go with Griezmann and Mandzukic (touch wood Song doesn't see him when they play Barca) and put up another great fight.

So it's back, the highs & lows, the twitter rants at the official West Ham account after an inept performance, watching La Liga, Serie A & Ligue 1 on a laptop while the Mrs watches X-Factor and steering clear of Facebook every time Sp*rs win. Come May some of us will be sick of it (my girlfriend definitely will), by that point I definitely won't be interested in watching games containing teams like Leicester and Palace by then unless West Ham are involved (by the way, Palace definitely screwed with Pulis leaving), but we'll have had another history making 10 months of football. Bring it on!!

Erm... So...

I'm not really sure what I'm blogging about tonight I'm just going to ramble seen as I have no real theme or idea in my head. The Premier League started on Saturday, my summary of it is as follows. West Ham got off to a winning start. Aston Villa were terrible, and barely created anything all game. Kevin Nolan scored another 5 yard backpost tap in, if you've not noticed that that is all he does you need to. I say that's all he does, that's a lie, he does also argue with everything that moves. The three things I took note of from the game were, surprisingly, not related to the mediocre football I saw. The first was, Barry Bannan is bloody short! Simon Gillett short! Wikipedia says 5ft 7inches, absolutely no way!! I'm not having a bar of it, he's clearly entered that himself. You're not fooling us Barry! Secondly Aston Villa have a song much like West Ham that goes along the lines of:

"We're passing the ball!
We're passing the baaaaaaall!
Aston Villa
We're passing the ball!"

I'll assume from the above that the Villa fans, much like us at West Ham, are fed up of watching their side lump it diagonally to a big forward (swap Carlton Cole for Emile Heskey). When will these coaches learn? Hopefully Paul Lambert can improve things at Villa Park; based on what I saw, he needs to else Villa will be in trouble. The last of the things I noted was contrary to my comment regarding West Ham's usual sock colour in my post last week. I sat here and rubbished any colour accompanying Claret and Blue other than White. Only to discover at 3pm on Saturday when the two teams emerged from the tunnel, that this year West Ham's socks are in fact Claret. Herecy!!

These guys have got the little arms and  everything.  I don't believe that either are over 5ft 5in

In other Premiership news Van Persie-less Arsenal couldn't hit a barn door at home to Sunderland, Giroud had a perfect chance to score the winner on his debut and massively fluffed his lines. I swear I've seen this somewhere before? Manchester City and Chelsea both got off to winning starts, I was impressed by Aiden Azard's performance against Wigan, where he basically created both goals. I'm sure you're all reading this thinking, "Who the hell is Aiden Azard? Doesn't he mean Eden Hazard..." Well I've got news for you people, as with Azard's compatriot "Van-san Kompany", all commentators have now taken it upon themselves to give it the pretentious French pronunciation. Does this mean that if Christiano Ronaldo ever came back to the Premier League we'll have to start saying "Honaldo" in true Portuguese style?

Is he Irish? I thought he was Belgian?

City came from behind to beat Southampton, Aguero messed his knee up, thus potentially messing up my fantasy football chances and the champions were given a scare when the Saints staged a mid-2nd half comeback, which was kicked of by Ricky Lambert. The man is an absolute goal machine. Every season I say, "He won't get any thing year, he'll struggle with the step up to the division above..." and he proves me wrong (well he did last year, it's early days in the Premiership). Watch this space, he could be in for a good season.

Goal Machine

The two most successful teams in English football both got off to losing starts. When was the last time that happened (answers on a postcard)? For once I don't have a geeky stat accompanied with a joke about being socially awkward regarding that one. I'd genuinely like to know when the last time Liverpool and Manchester United both lost on the first day of the season (I might look that one up in the coming week, that'll make for a wild weekend, eh). Van Persie-ful Manchester United looked like they just got caught out on the day by a very impressive looking Everton side. Liverpool on the other hand, look shocking. Unfortunately (well fortunately for me, I don't like Liverpool) I think they're actually going to get worse this season, they seem to have steadily been getting worse over the last two decades and I don't think (based on their transfer activity during the summer) that Brendon Rodgers is going to turn things around. I suppose I could be wrong though Liverpool fans, I mean it's not like I predicted who'd win the Olympic football tournament...