January transfers

And hot off the press, a manager transfer (of sorts).

 

Sky Sports claiming we're 1 of 4 PL clubs interested in Zaha.

 

No thanks to Zaha for me. No better than Redmond, and I'd rather see the Murphys progress

 

Agreed, we've got enough youngsters capable of cutting in and shooting wildly. If a winger is inbound I'd prefer them to be like Pilks.

 

Yep, agree with this. Plus he's got a 'big' reputation - for someone who's not achieved much in the game, so they'd mark him out of the game like they used to try and do with Huckerby.
I bet both the Murphy's confidence is sky high after both being involved on Saturday - that's the way forward, imho

 

Lovely stat this, if Roger Johnson does join West Ham, and the tables don't change between now and the end of the season, he'll have been relegated 5 times in 4 seasons.

 

We'll have to make our away kit orange soon?

 

Heitinga has been pretty abysmal with the exception of a great 6 month period a couple of seasons ago. He's not cut out for this league. Slow and error prone.

 

In which case West Ham are welcome to him...

Slow and error prone sounds too much like the rest of our centre backs for me. On high wages with little resale value too.

 

Ouch - vicious that DH !

 

Update on Wes.
Warren Haughton seems to think he wants to join Villa - make of it what you will:
http://www.norwich.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=344481

 

fulham did that i believe.

 

Loza to Leyton Orient on a short-term loan. Good luck to him.

http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/sport/leytonorient/leytonorient/10917144._/?

 

The interview that report is from also suggests that Cardiff, Newcastle and Stoke are the frontrunners to take Zaha on loan.

Also that an official approach for Wes would be made in the next couple of days. We're likely to want more than £1.5m

 

Can't see why we'd want Zaha, he would be the 4th right winger we had on the books

 

Jamar Loza has got another loan move! This time he's off to Leyton Orient (according to the official twitter account andJosh Murphy) on a 28 day youth loan. Little disappointed it's not longer.

Presumably he'll go as third choice striker behind Kevin Lisbie and David Mooney, although they've just signed Shaquil Coulthirst from Spurs too so he'll be in competition with him.

 

Can you blame Wes wanting to move on? Can't get a nod ahead of Elmander despite him doing **** all.

 

let's hope he gets more gametime than the spell with Cov

 

Blimey - you might as well compare Wes with Bunn or Ruddy as compare him to Elmander - different kind of player in a different kind of role. Elmander has his limitations for sure - pace is one - but he does a particular job and does it effectively in my opinion. Plus some of the whacks he gets in doing an unselfish job is incredible - he took at least three massive hits on Saturday and still got up without rolling around like a shot deer.

Leave Elmander alone and please don't compare him with Wes.

 

I don't know if it's that unfair a comparison. Elmander is meant to be the striker dropping deeper and trying to create things, whilst Hoolahan is a midfielder pushing forwards to create. Elmander's hold-up play is probably the only reason he's really preferred. Over the summer Hughton was definitely experimenting with pushing Fer further up the pitch to see if he could do it, so I think the lack of an out-ball from the back to Hooper/RvW was a concern of Hughton's, and in the absence of Toivonen, Elmander is a better solution than Hoolahan. I'd rather we 'just' learned to pass more from the back, but that's a separate argument.

Bringing it back to Hoolahan versus Elmander, neither have pace, neither score much, and both only have a single assist to their name this season (Elmander having played double the number of games). So Elmander's hold-up play is probably just swinging it. I don't think he's actually been that bad this season. He's linked up well with Hooper, but it's a rather Heskey-Owen type partnership where only one of them is doing the scoring.