By Bulldog Drummond
As we approach the game against WHAM it appears they have been a bit lackadaisical with the old data stuff by revealing personal details of lots of season ticket-holders. It seems that in writing to supporters of WHAM (for such people do exist I’m told) email addresses of all the other recipients were included. Not only is this a clear breach of the data protection law but also, I would imagine, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations. And of course it could be a severe embarrassment to some of the people on the list who might well not want it known that they hold a season ticket with WHAM.
Worse, and rather amusingly if one is not on the list, the club then sent out an apology which actually repeated the dastardly deed so once again everyone saw everyone else’s email address.
It would perhaps be a little unkind to say of WHAM that this is typical of the club, not least since they have, as they have told us, had the most successful migration of a club from one ground to another in the history of the universe. And certainly the cheapest, since it is us taxpayers who paid for it. Boris Johnson is guilty of many crimes but none greater than doing that deal when Mayor.
In another apparently unrelated incident WHAM are having a barney with the owners of the London Stadium. It seems that despite getting the ground for a rent so cheap that it can be paid out of the profit from one of the soft drink concession stands, it is said that the rent has not been paid. Or at least not in full. Or maybe not the right person – details are a little unclear.
Anyway, as a result what is called an honours board which was in the ground has been taken down (presumably for cleaning not, surely, for updating) and not been put back.
Baroness Karren Brady, who is the person who made the infamous “most successful stadium migration in history” statement has now made another statement in which she said words to the effect, “We are frustrated and angry that our landlords should act in this underhand way and we will not hesitate to take a legal route to confirm our rights under the tenancy agreement.”
Meanwhile the transfer opening, which is now closed, was an active time to WHAM. They brought in such unsuspecting young lads as
- Ryan Fredericks from Fulham for free
- Issa Diop from Toulouse for £22m
- Lukasz Fabianski who we all recall left us after winning the FA Cup, from Swansea City for £7m
- Jack Wilshere another old boy to whom we wish no harm from Arsenal free
- Andriy Yarmolenko from Borussia Dortmund for £17.5m
- Fabian Balbuena from Corinthians for £3.5m
- Felipe Anderson from Lazio for £33.5m
- Xande Silva from Vitoria de Guimaraes for sums undisclosed at this time
- Lucas Pérez yet another from Arsenal for £4m
- Carlos Sánchez from Fiorentina for £4m
As one might expect, after a period at the Taxpayers Stadium, quite a few men wanted to leave, people such as James Collins, Patrice Evra, Ben Wells, Reece Burke, Korrey Henry, Marcus Browne, Cheikhou Kouyaté, Sead Haksabanovic, Jordan Hugill, Domingos Quina, Sam Byram, Edimilson Fernandes, Toni Martínez all managing to make an escape.
So let’s take a peek at their last ten games…
| Date | Game | Res | Score |
| 31 Mar 2018 | West Ham United v Southampton | W | 3-0 |
| 08 Apr 2018 | Chelsea v West Ham United | D | 1-1 |
| 16 Apr 2018 | West Ham United v Stoke City | D | 1-1 |
| 22 Apr 2018 | Arsenal v West Ham United | L | 4-1 |
| 29 Apr 2018 | West Ham United v Manchester City | L | 1-4 |
| 05 May 2018 | Leicester City v West Ham United | W | 0-2 |
| 10 May 2018 | West Ham United v Manchester United | D | 0-0 |
| 13 May 2018 | West Ham United v Everton | W | 3-1 |
| 12 Aug 2018 | Liverpool v West Ham United | L | 4-0 |
| 18 Aug 2018 | West Ham United v AFC Bournemouth | L | 1-2 |
Four defeats, three draws and three wins in the last ten.
Interestingly their away form last season was actually worse than Arsenal’s…
| Pos | Club | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
| 10 | Southampton | 19 | 3 | 8 | 8 | 17 | 30 | -13 | 17 |
| 11 | Arsenal | 19 | 4 | 4 | 11 | 20 | 31 | -11 | 16 |
| 12 | Newcastle United | 19 | 4 | 4 | 11 | 18 | 30 | -12 | 16 |
| 13 | West Ham United | 19 | 3 | 6 | 10 | 24 | 42 | -18 | 15 |
| 14 | Everton | 19 | 3 | 6 | 10 | 16 | 36 | -20 | 15 |
| 15 | Watford | 19 | 4 | 2 | 13 | 17 | 33 | -16 | 14 |
| 16 | Huddersfield Town | 19 | 3 | 5 | 11 | 12 | 33 | -21 | 14 |
| 17 | West Bromwich Albion | 19 | 3 | 4 | 12 | 10 | 27 | -17 | 13 |
| 18 | Stoke City | 19 | 2 | 7 | 10 | 15 | 38 | -23 | 13 |
| 19 | Swansea City | 19 | 2 | 6 | 11 | 11 | 32 | -21 | 12 |
| 20 | Brighton and Hove Albion | 19 | 2 | 5 | 12 | 10 | 29 | -19 | 11 |
It is interesting, I think, because although we were all aware of the failings of the club away from home, and the fact that Arsenal fell way short of what other clubs in the top six did away from home, we were in fact a middle ranking team in that regard. Not what we expect, but not as catastrophic as painted in some quarters.
More anon…
Despite West Ham having a modest away form, but at which ground and in which competition? In the PL? Anyway, whatever be the modest in away form the West Hammers have, Arsenal will not allow any modest away form the West Hammers possessed to reign on them in the PL match encounter between the duo club sides tomorrow at the Ems.
Despite the fact that Slaven Bilic, the sacked West Ham manager did bring his West Ham team to the Ems to embarrass Arsenal 0-2 in the PL in an opening day season match fixture some past seasons ago. Pellegrini, the current West Ham boss who’ll bring his own West Hammers team to the Ems to play Arsenal and suspectedly will try to see his West Hammers team get at least a point in the match to stop the rot which the West Hammers are currently in. But he’ll be in for a shock because the Gunners of Arsenal will not give his Irons team any chance whatsoever to get a point in the match but an outright heavy defeat.
Despite Pellegrini is nursing the hopes to see Arsenal become naive, nervous, desperate and frustrated in the match, the Gunners who have prepared themselves fully to deal with whatever game playing antics Pellegrini has instructed his West Hammers team to subject the Gunners to during the match will make sure the West Hammers are the ones who will become depressed at the end of the match as a result of the heavy defeat they’ve suffered to them in the match as they return home.
Hope we play the way we did in the later part of the first half against Chelsea , but this time for the entire 90 minutes !
Let the ‘WOO HOO , HOO-ing begin !
Up the Gunners !