Re: EPL

They seem to be pretty much doomed. Pack of clowns.

West Ham squad ‘out of control’

Reckless gambling ruining morale
Player won 38,000 from team-mates
Curbishley ‘not talking’ to big winner

Jamie Jackson
Sunday March 4, 2007
The Observer

A culture of reckless high-stakes gambling is causing division within West Ham and rupturing morale to such an extent that the first-team squad, already riven by cliques, is ‘spiralling out of control’ - and the players, manager and directors already know that they can do nothing to stop the club being relegated. That is the damning view from inside the dressing room at the Premiership’s most troubled club.

Players are haemorrhaging vast amounts of money to each other at the card table, as much as 50,000 in one sitting. They have won and lost these staggering sums on the team coach to matches. ‘How can they be in a good frame of mind for a match after that?’ says one first-team player, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The player said: ‘I’ve never seen anything like it in my career. It’s one big mess here, the atmosphere is terrible, people don’t talk to each other. Players are losing 30, 40 and 50 thousand pounds sometimes. By the time we arrive one player owes another and it’s terrible for the team and morale. They are always playing cards.’

One senior player, an established international, is said to have won 38,000 from two of his team-mates in one afternoon recently. The losers had to pay up and manager Alan Curbishley is no longer speaking to the player who won the money. Two members of the squad have undertaken counselling and treatment for gambling addiction, and a third player is also believed to be seeking professional help.

The disillusioned player also identified a catalogue of other problems. These include spats between rival cliques within the dressing room over territory and wages; divisive tension between Curbishley and his players; doubts over the decision-making of new chairman Eggert Magnusson; and the widespread admission, privately, that the club will be relegated. He also said that one recent signing was amazed when he was asked to a meeting to discuss club affairs with senior management in a lap-dancing club, though the club strongly deny that any such meeting took place.

Added to West Ham’s list of woes, as they prepare to take on Tottenham today, is the Premier League charge for alleged irregularities in the signing of the Argentine players Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez last August, which could result in the loss of points if the club are found guilty; and the pending trial of defender Anton Ferdinand on charges of assault and violent disorder following an alleged brawl outside a London nightclub last October.

It is the depth of the club’s gambling problem, which has already caused winger Matthew Etherington and goalkeeper Roy Carroll to seek help, that most concerns Curbishley, according to our source. A West Ham spokesman said: ‘The club is aware of the fact that gambling is an area of concern and the manager has made clear that it must stop. Steps have been taken to eradicate this in the team environment.’

It is believed that Curbishley’s first attempt to stop the card schools some weeks ago failed, but gambling is now banned in situations where he is responsible for the team, such as on journeys to matches. But he has been unable to stop the poker sessions when training is over, and one recent session is said to have continued until 4am.

The former England striker Teddy Sheringham spoke about gambling earlier in the season when promoting the online poker site 888.com. ‘I can see why it [gambling] does become a problem, especially for young players who have so much money and so much time on their hands. I’ve always enjoyed a drink, but at the right times, and I play poker at the right times. Some people take it to extremes. You’ve got to keep it under control.’

The gambling culture is one more headache for former Charlton manager Curbishley, who took over at Christmas, since when West Ham have won only once. Curbishley’s predecessor, Alan Pardew, had taken the club to within a minute of winning the FA Cup last May, but then oversaw a dramatic slump this season. West Ham are now bottom of the table and 11 points adrift of safety.

According to a well-placed source at Upton Park, the players are ‘certainly not a unit and haven’t been for a long time. It began at the end of last season during Pardew’s time. There is a huge division. Nigel Reo-Coker, Bobby Zamora, Marlon Harewood and Shaun Newton all hang out together. And Reo-Coker is constantly saying he is too good for the club, that he should be at Man United or Arsenal.’ Team spirit is also damaged, according to the representative of one long-serving player, by the level of resentment about the wages paid to Matthew Upson and Lucas Neil, who were signed by Curbishley in the transfer window and are being paid big money. Neil is thought to have turned down Liverpool to keep a 60,000-a-week salary.

‘It’s not rocket science,’ said the agent, who represents some of the biggest stars in the Premiership. ‘If the established players who have achieved for the club see new ones come in enjoying a lot more money for doing not very much, it’s obviously going to cause problems.’ Upson and Neil have been injured and have made three appearances between them.

Curbishley is said to have ‘given up’ on some of his players. ‘He often stays in his office with his assistants. Sometimes we see him, other times we don’t,’ said the insider. As for Magnusson, the players ‘think he is clueless and a bit lost. He gives off the wrong messages and only talks to certain players in the dressing room - those he brought here. And he has accepted Curbishley’s admission that they are already down.’

Curbishley said ahead of today’s game that he does not fear the sack. ‘Performances have to improve. We have to win as many as we can from our last 10 games.’

That whining, hypocritical prick Thierry Henry is out for the season.

Might be an idea for Arsenal to sell him in the summer before he hits 30 so they can still cream a huge fee off someone on the continent.

BT emailed me recently commenting on how much of a bottler Gerrard was when compared to Henry

I must say I laughed heartedly

Compare their respective performances in the last two Champions League finals - the biggest games in each respective clubs’ recent histories

Re: EPLe

i watched the last half hour or so of the villa liverpool match there due to a financial investment. it was probably one of the most boring, uneventful, least skillful thirty minutes of football i have seen in a long time. everything about the match was poor and while you can understand the crowd being subdued due to the product on offer the atmosphere was really terible. both sides really do lack creativity and while they may be well organised sides it doesn’t make for any sort of entertainment. petrov really looks disinterested since joining villa. the rumours about him wanting to leave epl must be true. he clearly knows he made a mistake in leaving celtic and is now paying the price, having to battle it out in mid table epl playing with average players.

Didnt see the game but heard it was a stinker all right. Neither teams have anything to really play for so that may have had something to do with it.

Don’t see how Petrov would be any less frustrated playing in Scotland than in England. He would have the Champions League though guaranteed every year with Celtic…

if there is a word for worse than a stinker then it was that. it actually realrely surprised me how bad it was even though i wouldn’t be the biggest fan of the epl at all. truely awful it was.
as regards petrov he is probably frustrated with villa’s ambitions. what is he actually playing for? for mid table security or at a push fifth place in the epl as opposed to what he had in playing for one of the biggest clubs in the world. a lot of celtic fans are very critical of him but i can understand why he fell for the hype of the epl like some other players do and just because he made a mistake (albeit a monumental one) should be no reason to crucify him. he had a good attitude when playing for celtic and if he came back in the summer i would welcome him (having said that he would probably struggle for a place).

i cant believe i got out of bed to watch that one. absolutely brutal. only thing they have to play for this season is the cl

I doubt that he fell for the hype - he was probably motivated by the money. The point is though he left as did Maloney.

Can I just say how pissed off I am with Celtic fans who constantly take a swipe at the Premiership. Ok I will be the first to admit that the standard in the Premiership is pretty poor - for instance more or less the same four clubs always get into the Champions League. But it is not as bad as the SPL. That is plainly obvious.

Also I am one of the people who believe that Celtic would be challenging for the Premiership title should they enter the League. I can understand Celtic fans getting pissed off with people who clearly have no clue saying that they would get relegated or finish mid table.

And another thing - what is with this whole ‘EPL’ lark? I remember discussing this with Rock on an occasion. I suggested that going out of his way to change the name so as to bring it on a par with the SPL is plainly petty. He said he couldn’t care less about it but then went on for about half an hour about how Sky determine football’s history

Is there a significance between coming 3rd or 4th in the EPL?

I’m not sure but I think if you come 4th you go into the second round of pre-qualifiers and 3rd goes into the final round so it probably saves a bit of hassle to come 3rd.

Re ‘EPL’; I call it that to distinguish between the leagues in England and Scotland. The ‘E’ stands for ‘England’ and the ‘S’ stands for Scotland.

yeah really was awful. answer the pm i sent you today please. pm section is just below the login form.

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with petrov maybe it was for the money but i personally don’t think it was. i would probably be in the minority of celtic fans who probably feels a little bit sorry for petrov. he made an honest mistake that is all. as for maloney, money and maybe more first team opportunites were probably the reasons for him leaving. i was criticising the match yesterday because i was genuinely shocked at how bad it was. i have seen a few games this season and the standard has been really poor. it really makes a mockery of sky’s promtion of it as the best league in the world. while spl standard is pretty poor at least people who watch it in ireland and scotland don’t claim that the standard is something that it is not. the same cannot be said for the epl (i call it that to avoid confusion with the spl). what is your problem farmer? am i not entitled to criticise it because i don’t follow an english team?

I agree with farmer on that one. Its another case of taking a swipe at the epl because of hatred for sky. I do agree that its not the best league in the world and is similar to the spl in the way that its two tier, but look at the last 8 of cl this year. 3 english teams there, and they got there relatively comfortably.

Liverpool got to the last 8 comfortably did they? you get very paranoid when any criticism is made of the epl.

Piper - one is called the Premiership and the other is called the SPL

There is a clear distinction there. Why bother change the name of the Premiership to the EPL?

I don’t for one second think that you don’t have a right to criticise the Premiership. It’s just that you seem to take a lot of joy in criticising it - that’s all.

When did it change to The Premiership? It was initially called the Premier League and is still referred to as that by many commentators, pundits and players. The ‘E’ and ‘S’ simply distinguish the English and Scottish leagues. I don’t know why you seem to see there as being something sinister in calling it by those terms.

I have never once heard it referred to the EPL. I also havent heard it referred to as the Premier League in a long time. What does it matter when it changed? The fact is that it is now widely known as the Premiership. So why not call it that? The fact that you would go out of your way to change its name indciates that you have some problem with something somewhere

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don’t follow the english leagues so i don’t see the point in calling one the premier league and the other the scottish premier league. i have called it that since joining the huddleboard many years ago to avoid confusion between the two leagues. why get so hung up on the name?
believe me no one could take joy in seeing that damp squib of a match yesterday. it was that bad. in all my innocence i was looking forward to watching some entertaining, skillful football as i had a bet on the match. what i got was two teams who worked hard but appeared to have no real class at all.

I heard Jamie Redknapp call it the ‘Premier League’ yesterday when I got home from Wexford Park. I also heard an interview with Ronaldo yesterday morning from after Saturday’s game saying how determined United were to win the ‘Premier League’. Maybe you don’t hear the same interviews as me?

Some people call the premier European club competition the Champions’ Cup still. Others call it the Champions’ League. I wouldn’t have thought it was something to get overly concerned about.

Were you disappointed when Liverpool were knocked out of the FA Cup sponsored by EON? Did you make sure you got the full title in when you were discussing it with your pals?

Exactly Farmer - the name doesn’t matter so let it go. It’s not a big deal. This is not an anywhere near interesting debate.

That is exactly my point Clarkey - the name doesn’t matter.

But it is not me who is getting hung up about it - it is those who call it the EPL who obviously have some hang up about it