In Forum Focus, we put the spotlight on one of the more interesting message board discussions from across the various Premiership club forums – a chance to see what your fellow fans are thinking.
This time, we see how West Ham and Spurs fans react to Darren Bent turning the Hammers down
It’s the question on the lips of quite a few West Ham supporters these days. After they staved off Premiership relegation by the skin of their pointy, vampire-like teeth it was only a matter of time before the biscuit man’s billions would fix things up quickly, they claimed. When the paper talk was that West Ham were off out-bidding everyone by a large margin from transfer bids to weekly wages – they seemed to have a point.
Scott Parker arrived from Newcastle, but since then not all has gone to plan. We know that when we laughed in the face of our Hammer mates after Yossi Benayoun suddenly did a 180 on his new contract after Liverpool allegedly came knocking, a player happy to turn his back on a supposedly bigger contract in order to play for a certainly bigger club was amusing.
Despite a late bid from Tottenham, Charlton’s Darren Bent seemed set for a move back to old boss Alan Curbishley’s arms but this morning Bent has turned them down – insane weekly wage and all. All of this has left Spurs fans laughing and West Ham fans rather distraught and not particularly hopeful for the future.
So what is the problem for a club with a good history, and plenty of cash to spend? Is there a more serious threat of further punishment for Tevezcherano than we think? Is Curbishley struggling to convince targets that last season was the exception, not the rule? Are there just better options for these players and the Hammers need to lower their goals?
Some posts from the lads at Kumb.com after the jump:
Written by stevyrockstar
must admit, it is frustrating and a little baffling. Like majority of fans, these feel like exciting times with a whole new era, but so far we’ve had:
1) barton not even bothering to talk to us
2) nrc requesting a transfer
3) yossi reneging on a contract and wanting to go to scousepool
4) darren bent turning us down flat
5) rumours that parker actually wanted to stay at newcastle
6) defoe allegedly not wanting to come back
7) rumours of other more ambitious targets – a la toure – being out of our reach
8) tevez publicly saying he wants to play for a european giant a la inter (cant blame him of course!)personally, I think all these events have worked as a reality check. It’s humiliating a little, sure, but we can take it
Written by djbelz
lets be honest we escaped relegation on the last day, the media is portraying us as evil and potentially going to championship still, and we have our captain leaving because of sh*t fans! Oh, not to mention the racism comments we seemed to get tagged with!
Would you really want to jump out of your shirts to come here right now? Sure if you have vision like Lucas Neill or Eggy but as many have said, people like to see results first
Written by Marky
I think Curbishley is the problem. His dour personality and suspect man management skills dont help.
Not sure he could really sell West Ham like say a Sam Allardyce could sell Newcastle or an O’Neil could sell Villa. IMO of course
Written by EssexDave
It’s frustrating as the club seems have been thwatred badly in its three aims for the new season;
1 Ditch the dross (the famous 15 players to be sold off)
2 Tie down the ones we want (Tevez, Yossi and persistant Lucas rumours)
3 Bring in quality players (Bent, Defore, Barton etc)
Written by kthammer
Yes it is odd that – I assumed that with Parker coming Curbs was looking to assemble players who knew him in the past and respected him – and yet Bent is not impressed. I can’t believe that Spuds are so very much more attractive – does anyone know of bad blood between Bent and Alan?