Up The Hammers – Latest West Ham United FC News

Sam Allardyce had mused after West Ham United’s Capital One Cup quarter-final win at Tottenham Hotspur, in the knowledge that it would be Manchester City next, that the competition’s format had a flaw. “It is a shame,” the West Ham manager said, “that the semi-final cannot be over one leg.” He suggested that West Ham might have a chance if that one-off tie were at Upton Park. The events here did little to strengthen the hypothesis. Yes, this semi-final was already…

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• Hammers manager targets 22 points from 16 league matches • Newcastle United still eager to sign Loïc Rémy from QPR If West Ham are looking for silver linings, there is always Tuesday’s Capital One Cup semi-final against Manchester City to get excited about. Admittedly, West Ham are 6-0 down from the first leg but a cup semi-final is undoubtedly a grand occasion. Andy Carroll might get another run-out. Kevin Nolan will be …

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Minute-by-minute report: Join Simon Burnton for all the latest news from the day’s afternoon kick-offs Simon Burnton

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Click here to have the Fiver sent to your inbox every weekday at 5pm, or if your usual copy has stopped arriving BIG SAM MAKES ROY AND KENNY’S DREAM COME TRUE Like many a fellow football fan, the Fiver loves to while away the hours mulling over counterfactuals. What would the outcome of the 1966 World Cup final have been if Jimmy Greaves had been picked ahead of Geoff Hurst? Where would Sheffield Wednesday and Manchester United be now if the former …

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• Bid of £5m-plus could tempt Hammers • Bluebirds face competition from Fulham Cardiff City are interested in signing Ravel Morrison from West Ham United, though they face competition from Fulham for the midfielder’s signature. The 20-year-old is open to either option, due to his Manchester United connections with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and René Meulensteen, the managers of the respective clubs. Morrison has 18 months left on a contract that currently earns him £15,000 a week. Should West…

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• Hammers win gives Sam Allardyce much-needed lift • Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side sink into bottom three The wheel of fortune turns, making nonsense of the rush to judgment that sees so many managers sacked with indecent haste in an era when they are lucky to last two years. A week ago Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was Cardiff’s messiah and Sam Allardyce a prat after the novice Norwegian’s first game in charge…

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• Manchester City defender slips to fourth choice at club • Lescott keen to regain England place for World cup finals Joleon Lescott is the target of a £90,000-a-week move to West Ham United from Manchester City though he may reject the transfer as he is hopeful of attracting a higher-placed club in a bid to force his way into England’s World Cup squad. The central defender is fourth choice at City under…

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Both players made headlines for the wrong reasons, but the parallels end there Bobby Moore and George Best have so much in common, especially in a week when their crass misdemeanours have forced them to share embarrassing headlines, that many people will fail to identify the vast dissimilarities in their natures. This is a pity, for it can only encourage the gloating of those who are always anxious to tell us that professional footballers are uncouth louts who…

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• Sam Allardyce sees 10-man West Ham see off Cardiff • Ole Gunnar Solskjaer unhappy with side’s first-half display West Ham ended their traumatic week with a 2-0 win at Cardiff that lifted them out of the bottom three in the Premier League, easing the pressure on Sam Allardyce, their embattled manager. Allardyce declined to speak to the media after the match, leaving his assistant, Neil McDonald, to say how pleased they both were with the spirit …

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Sam Allardyce and his team, beaten in five of their previous six matches, took the lead just before half-time through Carlton Cole, then gutsily withstood Cardiff’s second half pressure, even after James Tomkins had been sent off. By way of reward the 10 men scored a second, through Mark Noble, in added time The result leaves Cardiff deeper in trouble, with just one win in their last 11 league matches. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had his new signing, Magnus Eikrem…

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• Spaniard has Sergio Agüero’s goal tally in his sights • Negredo points out that West Ham tie is not yet over Álvaro Negredo has called for humility from his Manchester City team-mates before the League Cup semi-final, second leg against West Ham United, and admitted he hopes to finish the season as the club’s top scorer ahead of Sergio Agüero. With Manuel Pellegrini’s side 6-0 ahead from Wednesday’s first leg at the Etihad – where Negredo scored a fabulous left-foot…

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Two heavy cup defeats have fuelled the fans’ discontent, more of the same could spell the end for West Ham’s manager Six years ago on Friday Sam Allardyce woke up an unemployed man, the scars of his sacking by Newcastle United still hurting. If that remains the most regrettable period of his career – he was only in charge for eight months – Allardyce’s current predicament at West Ham United does …

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The Manuel Pellegrini bandwagon rolls on thanks to inspirational Álvaro Negredo as the Irons are left to melt in the fire 1 City juggernaut drives on “I think that the last month of 2013 was fantastic for us. We played nine games during December. We won eight and drew just one and we started the new year with another good win at Swansea and a draw in the FA Cup at Blackburn Rovers. Now, in …

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The only surprise, perhaps, was that Manchester City restricted themselves to six. The tie was so one-sided, the level of opposition so utterly abject, that there were moments when it was easy to imagine another seven-goal haul to emulate what happened against Norwich, never mind the six that Arsenal and Tottenham sieved inside this stadium. The fifth goal went in before the hour had even passed. After that, the goal machine that is Manuel…

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Will Big Sam’s side put their FA Cup upset behind them to put one over on Manchester City to take a huge step towards the final at Wembley? Steven Bloor

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Minute-by-minute report: Who will get their noses ahead in the first leg of the Capital One Cup semi-final? Find out with Paul Doyle Paul Doyle

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The former Aston Villa, West Ham and Everton player, who has announced he is gay, had a thunderous shot and scored the decisive goal when Stuttgart won the title in 2007 Thomas Hitzlsperger has never shirked a challenge. In 2000, as an 18-year-old, he decided to leave his parents and six siblings in Germany to move to England. He had just been released by Bayern Munich, where he had been for eight years, but did not want to join another Bundesliga club. He wanted a challenge – …

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Manuel Pellegrini says Manchester City are taking this season one game at a time in the Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup and Capital One cup

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• Balfour Beatty win £154m contract to make venue multipurpose • Concerns grow over the role of West Ham in long-term plans The cost of the Olympic Stadium has risen to more than £580m, most of it met by taxpayers, with the news that Balfour Beatty has been awarded the £154m contract to transform the venue into one suitable for football and athletics. The appointment of a contractor to oversee the transformation of the temporary 80,000 seat structure into one with a cantilevered roof, permanent …

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Construction firm boosted by £154m deal to convert arena into football club’s new home and multi-purpose venue by 2016 Balfour Beatty has won the £154m contract to convert London’s Olympic stadium into the new home of West Ham United, in a fillip for the construction firm’s struggling UK business. The project will employ up to 400 people at its busiest, as Balfour Beatty turns the 80,000-seat Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park into a multi-purpose venue taking …

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Winger says the club have been ‘very unlucky’ and that the manager retains the players’ full support For West Ham and Stewart Downing, Sunday’s FA Cup meeting with Nottingham Forest provides some welcome relief from recent woes. The Hammers have secured two points out of a possible 21 in the Premier League since the beginning of December, so the prospect of a match against Championship opposition, however tricky, at least represents an…

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Twenty-three years ago Alex Ferguson was rescued by a third-round win at the City Ground. Sam Allardyce – 19th in the Premier League – badly needs a lift as his excuses ring hollow Sam Allardyce’s position might not be quite as endangered as Alex Ferguson’s before that famous FA Cup third-round tie at Nottingham Forest in January 1990 but there is also some fairly hard evidence that West Ham United’s manager is at a point in his professional life when he…

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• West Ham have lost seven of their last 10 league games • ‘It’s a tough period, no doubt about it,’ says Allardyce Sam Allardyce has dismissed suggestions West Ham United are in crisis, despite admitting that there is “doom and gloom” around the club following a disappointing run of form. There has been speculation that the manager’s job is at risk since the 2-1 defeat at Fulham on New Year’s Day left the…

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Wigan’s experience last year proved that the FA Cup is worth fighting for – whatever else happens as a result West Ham United were involved in the early kick-off last Saturday, so when they began to struggle at home to West Bromwich it gave the radio commentary team the chance, a full week in advance of this weekend’s third-round fixtures, to say that Sam Allardyce would not be remotely bothered about the FA Cup this…

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Jeff Randall, the Daily Telegraph columnist, is leaving the paper to join Babcock International as a non-executive director. His decision to step away from his full-time media commitments was revealed in July last year when he announced that he was to give up presenting his eponymous Sky News business show. In the Sunday Telegraph at the weekend, bidding “a fond farewell” to 30 years of financial journalism , he wrote about his time with the Telegraph group. He…

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• Sunderland look to extend unbeaten run against Aston Villa • Crystal Palace v Norwich; Fulham v West Ham relegation six-pointers Vito Mannone not only believes history is bunk but he also considers that statistics are there to be confounded. Sunderland’s goalkeeper merely shrugs when people tell him that West Bromwich Albion in 2004-05 are the only Premier League team to have escaped relegation after being bottom of the table at Christmas. “We need to believe something different,” says …

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