Too little, too late

West Ham United invites worst of all worlds

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By Brian Glanville, World Soccer

WEST HAM UNITED stand accused of monumental, self-destructive ineptitude.

By allowing a clearly diminished Glenn Roeder to return as manager after his frightening operation for a brain tumor, by thus having him in charge in the vital preseason weeks of training and transfers, only to sack him after a handful of games, they made sure they would have the worst of all worlds.

I have known, liked and respected Glenn for many years, but it was perfectly clear long before last season was over that he had largely lost his way. If he were to be sacked, it should have been well before the team had slid inexorably to relegation, when even the excellent Trevor Brooking, back again as temporary manager, could not quite save them.

The recent outburst by the French right-back Sebastien Schemell was out of order, and led first to his being thrown out of the Hammers' dressing room, then to his transfer, but it wasn't wholly unjustified. Roeder did persist disastrously with the likes of Tomas Repka in defence. despite a plethora of errors costing goals.

Had Roeder been paid off in the close season, it would still to some extent have been a confession of failure by the club, but it would have made a lot more sense, and could have been explained on grounds of fears about his health. Yet when he did come back, what chance did he have, with the selling off of the family silver: Joe Cole, Trevor Sinclair, Glenn Johnson?

And you still wonder why the Hammers had made, it seems, no contractual provision for relegation to the Nationwide, which always means a vertiginous loss of TV money. Yet their players had still to be paid the same amounts.

SAD to say Mark Hughes got things disastrously wrong in Belgrade last week, and his defense, that Wales could not go "gung ho" into such a game, was flimsy in the extreme -- for a variety of reasons. First and foremost because he didn't think out the implications of the absence of the injured John Hartson.

I've seen a lot of Wales in recent seasons, and know, as do the Welsh players themselves, how absolutely crucial is Hartson's muscular presence. A host in himself with his strength, heading powers, his ability to hold the ball up under extreme pressure, he is perfectly adapted to the role of lone striker. Nathan Blake isn't, and it was folly to use him as such. Move after move broken down on him putting Wales on the wrong foot. And to insist on such tactics was the more misled, given that Serbia had been in deep crisis, beaten even in Baku by Azerbaijan.

When I spoke to the talented Simon Davies before the game, he, too, felt that the Serbs should be put under pressure from the beginning. Instead, they were allowed to dig themselves in. And how nearly they scored in the first half when Dejan Stankovic hit the top of the left hand post from 25 yards, while the Welsh defense stood off and watched him.

Only when, as late as the 77th minute, Hughes finally brought on the irrepressible little Cardiff striker Robert Earnshaw, put Ryan Giggs in the center and went for a goal did it look as if Wales might save the game. True, there were doubts about the Serbian goal, since it looked as if Sava Milosevic had fouled Mark Delany on the far post. But then Earnshaw himself could have been offside when he coolly rounded the keeper, only to see his shot blocked on the line.

ONE of the stranger recent suggestions after England's untidy 3-1 win against Croatia was that Steve McLaren might be brought back to tighten the sloppy defense. (With which, asserted Eriksson, there was nothing really wrong!)

The idea seemed odd to me, having just seen Middlesbrough, under McLaren, defend disastrously against Fulham, and dottier still after Arsenal had strolled to that 4-0 victory last Sunday. Gratuitously, Eriksson had a pop at Joe Cole, on as a substitute, and close to scoring after intricate approach work, for not staying back to defend the English lead. Even if the Swede felt that to be the case, what need was there to say it in public, while so unconvincingly defending his defenders?

COLE found himself a substitute again three days later in Chelsea's somewhat laborious 2-1 victory over modest Leicester. Watched from the stand by Hernan Crespo, yet another hyper expensive target for the Abramovic millions. Meanwhile that other Cole, the powerful and promising 19-year-old striker Carlton, has been allowed to go to Charlton on loan. And there's Ken Bates talking about a Chelsea team wholly made up of homegrown players in the years to come!

Adrian Mutu's goal showed his force and class, but the overall picture at The Bridge is of a greedy child wanting to get its hands on everything it sees. The Old Woman Who Lived In a Shoe would understand.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.

Brian Glanville is Britain's most celebrated football writer. He also writes a monthly column in World Soccer magazine.

His latest book, a fully updated edition of THE STORY OF THE WORLD CUP is available in all good bookshops. Readers of worldsoccer.com can buy this highly-acclaimed history of the World Cup and enjoy a 10% discount by clicking here.