West Ham played their first game since the Feb. 10 match that I attended on Saturday. They visited Charlton Athletic, another London-area club mired near the bottom of the table, and it was an even bigger disaster than the loss I attended against last-place Watford.
Charlton are managed by Alan Pardew, who was West Ham's manager at the start of this season -- the manager who led them to the FA Cup final last year and to a rise back into the Premiership the year before. Pardew was fired in December and replaced by Alan Curbishley, who retired last spring after 15 years as manager of Charlton. Got that? Imagine if the White Sox had fired Jerry Manuel in 2002 and then he came back later that season as the manager of the Cleveland Indians. Meanwhile, the Sox had hired Mike Hargrove. That's the best analogy that I can draw. (It's a scary one, too, contemplating Hargrove as Sox manager.)
Charlton scored the first goal in the 23rd minute. While the game was on Saturday, TMG and I were watching it Sunday morning. After the goal -- which wasn't much of a surprise, because Charlton pressured the Irons from the get-go -- I got up and went into the kitchen to start making breakfast for us. I was still watching it, but I had a bad feeling. That feeling was proven true, unfortuately, in the 33rd and 40th minutes, as Charlton went up 3-0. They tacked on another goal late in the game for a
4-0 final.
West Ham hosts Tottenham Hotspurs on Sunday. Tottenham, of course, is playing some of its best football of late, having won three games in a row. Just the sort of luck the Hammers have had this year. Once again, the game will be broadcast on Fox Soccer Channel. I won't be able to watch it live because I have to leave on a business trip Sunday morning, but I'll record it and watch it when I get back. I'm a sucker that way.
West Ham midfielder Lee Bowyer could return Sunday from a shoulder injury sustained on New Year's Day (a brutal 6-0 loss at Reading).
Some comments that he made reminded me of the comments you hear from a veteran baseball player on a team that is falling out of contention.
"We are obviously in a very difficult position at the moment, but there is no way we can just give up and throw the towel in. ... However bad things are, there are still 30 points to play for, and we just have to keep going in the hope we can turn it around. ... I'm a fan of this club and I can see what the supporters are going through. Everyone here has got to fight and do everything we possibly can to survive, because it's not over yet."
Maybe Bowyer is the Crash Davis of West Ham United. I wonder what he thinks of the novels of Susan Sontag.