Effra, surprisingly still somewhat sane after the Hammer’s season so far, loses patience with West Ham’s man with the (supposed) plan.
If Curbishley doesn’t recall Robert Green on Tuesday, then the tide of scepticism rising around Upton Park about his management is in danger of bursting into open fury. God knows most of us want to like Curbishley because he is one of our own.
Everyone also recognises that he came into a hornet’s nest of problems. But his team selections are getting harder and harder to understand, starting with his frankly incomprehensible preference for Carroll over Green. Anyone who watched our two goalkeeper’s performances this season could have told Curbishley that when Carroll comes for balls like the one that led to Watford’s goal he tends to miss them, and that Green deals with them well. Carroll is poor with crosses and poor at distribution. Green commands his box and distributes the ball quickly and intelligently. Carroll is also one of the players who have helped derail our season with his personal self-indulgence. Argumentative lot as we are, I don’t know one West Ham fan who doesn’t prefer Green to Carroll.
I just don’t understand what’s going on in Curbishley’s head on this one. His comments to the media rarely do anything to illuminate, preferring, as he does, to dish out the blame to others rather than explain his own judgements. It’s hard enough swallowing Sean Newton over Mark Noble, or being told that our expectations of beating the bottom team in the Premiership at home in the fourth round of the FA Cup are unrealistic without Curbishley expecting us to defy the evidence of our own eyes on the goalkeeper issue.
If there’s more to this than what’s happening on the pitch, then he must tell us. Get this one wrong Curbs and there will be no point pretending there’s going to be anyone to blame but yourself.