Finally a win!! Zamora, Bellamy & Ljungberg.

Goals courtesy of dailymotion



Ashton saved for Tuesday 's game against former club Norwich presumably.


Southend United: Flahavan (Collis 72), Hunt, Clarke (Liptak 82), Barrett, Gower (Lokando 88), Maher (Moussa 72), Hooper (McDonald 45), Bailey (McCormack 61), Black (Foran , Hammell (Wilson 64), Harrold (Paynter 64). Subs unused: Ademeno.

West Ham United: Green; Neill, Ferdinand, Gabbidon, McCartney; Ljungberg (Reid 72), Noble, Bowyer (Mullins 64), Etherington (Pantsil 78); Zamora (Cole 59), Bellamy. Subs unused: Wright, Spector, Upson, Collins, Davenport.

Referee: G Hegley
Att: 9,522

Welcome home Lucas.

27/07/2007 15:25 West Ham United is delighted to announce that Lucas Neill has been appointed as our new Team Captain by manager Alan Curbishley.

The 28-year-old Australian defender, who is also captain of his national team, displayed impressive leadership qualities during our successful fight against relegation at the end of last season, and was seen by many as the natural successor to Nigel Reo-Coker, who recently joined Aston Villa. Alan Curbishley says: "I'm pleased to confirm Lucas as the new team captain of West Ham United. He has all the qualities needed to captain a Club of this stature. "He understands the role, has been used to it with Blackburn Rovers and Australia, and I'm sure it is an appointment that everybody at the Club is happy with."

Lucas, who returned to pre-season training at Upton Park today following international duty with Australia in the Asia Cup, says: "I'm absolutely overwhelmed and truly honoured to be named as captain of West Ham United. "This is a Club with so much great history and so many great players who have led the team out - and to see my name up alongside those people is a fantastic feeling. "It's an opportunity that I am going to relish. I will try to lead by example on and off the field and I promise all West Ham United supporters that I will lead their team out with immense pride."

"There's six or seven new owners who are spending money, but are they getting the type of player that the top four want? I don't think so. If I was going to spend a fortune on breaking the bank, I would be going after the players Liverpool or Manchester United wanted to sign. But, in the middle, people are fighting each other and raising the prices for the same players. You can see it with West Ham and Portsmouth. The agents are having an absolute 'beano'. It's like a property market, where estate agents own half the property or, in West Ham's case, it looks like all the property. What horrifies me is people who have made money out of property or biscuit tins telling a class act who's managing their club who they should be signing. That's for the birds, but it happens in a lot of cases. I see players signing and chairmen standing there with the jersey and their arms around the player and I say 'Oh my God, what are they doing?' It's their call, they may be like that and may be in it for that, but it's not right. If I start telling Roy Keane who to sign, I'm going against my own doctrine. Football is football, administration is administration. I'm 100% behind Roy on this. People are being pressurised into signing players from videos and giving agents lots of money. We won't do that. We have to keep our heads when this is going on."

Right OK - so Eggy's choosing our players is he? What evidence does he have?


By the way:

Sunderland
Ins: Dickson Etuhu (Norwich, £1.5m), Kieran Richardson (Manchester United, undisclosed), Greg Halford (Reading, £2.5m), Russell Anderson (Aberdeen, £1m), Michael Chopra (Cardiff City, £5m), Paul McShane (West Brom, £2.5m).
Outs: Kenny Cunningham (released), Tommy Miller (Ipswich, released).
Total £12.5m out not including Richardson spending.

West Ham United
Ins: Scott Parker (Newcastle, £7m), Julien Faubert (Bordeaux, £6.1m), Richard Wright (Everton, free), Craig Bellamy (Liverpool, £7.5m), Freddie Ljungberg (West Ham, £3m).
Outs: Paul Konchesky (Fulham, £3.25m), Nigel Reo-Coker (Aston Villa, £8.5m), Tyrone Mears (Derby, £1m), Yossi Benayoun (Liverpool, undisclosed), Marlon Harewood (Aston Villa, undisclosed).
Total £10.85m out, not including Benayoun and Harewood fees (income) at probably about £6m total, so my guess is we've spent just under £5m.

OK so you need to spend more coming up from the Championship, but I think Quinn's being a bit of a dick if he thinks we're pushing the spending up.

Jebus..things might be encouraging off the field but our form ain't that confidence inspiring on it.

Our goals came via Ephraim & an Upson free kick.

Dean Ashton scored a belter and apparently their goal wasn't so shabby either.

Highlights from Fred54....

Scott Parker picked up a slight knee injury against Lazio. The midfielder tweaked ligaments in his left knee in the final moments of the 2-0 defeat. He hopes to resume training within 7-10 days.

And on injuries, journo Ken Dyer who is a big West Ham fan said something along these lines on Talksport :-

"the training camp at the moment is like an out patients department. Lots of "walking wounded" if you like. It's a bit of a concern to the coaching staff. There are one or two players who are looking to be wrapped up in cotton wool. These players need to toughen up, both physically and mentally. No names mentioned. "

Additionally he said :-

* Thinks West Ham won't get much of the money from Tevez sale
* Thinks Kieron Dyer is not coming
* Thinks another striker & creative midfielder are still on the shopping list
* Says that people are excited by how sharp Zamora is looking
* Says the club have pretty much just broken even on the transfer front so far and could spend another £20million
* People at club are looking at a top half finish, anything else is a bonus.
[thanks to Peter Robinson & Peter Powell from the WHU Yahoo list.]

In team news for upcoming friendlies, Curbs is to split the squad between this week's two friendlies. Apparently he wants the majority of them to get through 90 mins. :-

Squad to face Leyton Orient: Green, Pantsil, Ferdinand, Davenport, Dailly, McCartney, Etherington, Bowyer, Mullins, Ashton, Cole, Stech, Stokes, Hines, Jeffery, Widdowson, Fitzgerald, Collison.

Provisional squad to face MK Dons: Wright, Spector, Gabbidon, Collins, Upson, Noble, Collison, Boa Morte, Ljungberg, Reid, Bellamy, Zamora, Ephraim, Walker.

UPDATE - Orient Game was 1-1, with a wonder strike by Deano. Theirs was top shelp too apparently

It appears MSI & JSI have instigated proceedings to sue us. From Setanta UK.

"I can confirm the companies have begun High Court proceedings against West Ham," said Teacher Stern Selby solicitor Graham Shear, the law firm representing MSI and Just Sports Inc.

The statement continued: "A High Court writ was served on the football club's solictors.

"The Companies seek the court's intervention to compel West Ham to release the registration of Carlos Tevez in accordance with contracts entered into between the parties."We are asking the court to intervene so that Tevez can be registered to play with Manchester United as soon as possible."

Personally this turn of events has me worried as I have always wondered how we could legally terminate a contract without the other parties consent and absent a clause allowing us to do so. Sure we have the PL on side in terms of registration but the courts may take a very different view.

In the realm of gossip, one of the Brisbane Hammers has connections with the UK press and passed on this snippet :-

"...tells me Eggy spent a month in Brazil & helped the prosecutor lay charges against the Iranian bloke. Apparently he never paid Corinthians a penny for either Mashpotato or King Carlos but did a bunk with them and they only ended up at Upton Park because “bent” Brown was the only bloke to show any interest. Remember they were hawked everywhere at the time but no-one was willing to take them on."

He also passed on something I've seen suggested elsewhere, namely that Eggy has had a gutful of Sky's Sports OTT anti West Ham / pro Manc reporting bias and has broken off communications with them.

I had actually heard this was just limited specifically to Sky Sports News and not Sky Sports in general.

In any case lets hope it doesn't have downstream ramifications for our games being shown here.

I think it's beyond all doubt now how serious Eggy and Curbs are about taking the club forward.



West Ham swoop to sign Ljungberg
By Chris Bevan

West Ham have completed the signing of Arsenal midfielder Freddie Ljungberg, BBC Sport understands.

The Hammers will unveil the 30-year-old Sweden international at a press conference at 1400 BST.

Ljungberg, who was also a target for Fiorentina, joined the Gunners in a £3m deal from Halmstads in 1998 and scored 72 goals in 325 games for the club.

He had two years left on his contract at the Emirates Stadium but Gunners boss Arsene Wenger decided to sell him.

Ljungberg, who was Arsenal's longest serving player, struggled with injury last season and played just 26 games.

c&p's

West Ham United were unfortunate to slip to a 2-0 defeat against Lazio in their third pre-season friendly of the summer on Saturday evening. In a tough encounter in the small Austrian village of Lebring, near Graz, goals either side of the break earned victory for the Italians, who are slightly ahead of Hammers in their pre-season preparations. Despite facing sharp opponents, though, Alan Curbishley's men were unlucky to end up on the losing side, after Craig Bellamy missed a 68th minute penalty and Carlton Cole had two efforts superbly saved by veteran Lazio goalkeeper Ballotta.

Striker Dean Ashton came comfortably through another 45 minutes, while Bellamy played the full 90. Mark Noble and Bobby Zamora were rested after picking up slight knocks in training.
Despite the result, Alan Curbishley will have been satisfied by another strenuous work-out and will look back on their week in Austria as a valuable fitness exercise ahead of the new Premier League campaign.

West Ham United: Green; Spector (Collins 45), Davenport (Upson 45), Ferdinand (Dailly 60), McCartney (Gabbidon 45); Bowyer (Collison 65), Mullins (Boa Morte 45), Parker, Etherington (Reid 70); Ashton (Cole 45), Bellamy.

==================

And good news on Ashton's state of fitness :-


Dean Ashton has revealed he is straining at the leash for next season to get underway and has warned Premier League defences that he will be the fittest and strongest he has ever been. Ashton missed the whole of last season after a cruel ankle break in an England training session and after such a long spell on the side-lines the powerful striker feels as if he is a "forgotten man" but has vowed to remind fans of his quality. Ashton said: "You can't describe how difficult it has been - it was horrible. Playing for England was everything you have dreamed of and the next minute it has gone. "I don't think there will be a hungrier player in the Premier League this season than me. "I've got to prove myself again and prove that I'm not a forgotten man and that I'm the same player I was. I want to show people how well I have come back form this injury. "I can definitely say that by the start of the season I will easily be the fittest I have ever been and the strongest I have ever been and I am excited by how I will feel. "I think my football won't be a problem. My brain hasn't got tired or hurt - that is going to be the same."

The cultured forward also has England's next Euro 2008 qualifier in his sights, saying: "I want to get back involved with England as soon as I can.

"There are plenty of strikers who will be fit and raring to go but if I am in Steve McClaren's plans then brilliant."

Bad - Faubert out for 6 months with ruptured archilles :( He is off to a top surgeon who has previously operated on the likes of Zidane. Curbs had been wrapped in what he had seen of him.

Good - Keiron Dyer being lined up for 2 mil & pay for play. Some might disagree its good but a few factors make it good to me. 1) Faubert's injury leaves us light. 2) He is speedy, can play either side. 3) 2 mil is fuggin cheap

Bad - Mark Hughes is after Bobby

Good - We are after Nicky Shorey from Reading. Bid of 5 mil in the works.

Good or Bad? - we are apparently interested in Lua Lua