As a lifelong Hammers supporter from half a world away (New Zealand) I don't get to many games however my wife & I did manage to attend three games last year during our long-awaited European excursion. We had the opportunity of meeting Sam Allardyce & Martin Peters in the 66Bar & although we didn't quite get to David Sullivan, he was in the bar answering questions re: the new stadium. I was quite impressed with the way he handled a few queries with obvious hidden agendas & the frankness of his responses, for better or worse, was admirable. While I'm disgusted by the pornography industry that he & David Gold made their fortunes in, Sullivan was far from the sleazebag type I had half expected. Whether this was his public face I dunno however on face value at least I'm satisfied that these guys do have West Ham's best interests at heart.

Can help but wonder whether the real villains in this whole fiasco are not the owners or Brady, Grant etc rather those who's carefully worded, scurrilous rakings of the muck bring these so-called "facts" to our attention.

Now, there's no smoke without fire I hear you say, however I have to beg to differ when some of dubious credentials resort to such low tactics to sell their employer's product & thus earn their keep.

And as for the "nature of the beast" argument, someone please bring me my rifle, (loaded with tag-and-release darts of course).

Thanks, like Reading game? Gulp!!!!

Couldn't see this match from New Zealand but sounds like it was a disaster. What the heck happened, anyone? Looks like we need Tevez yet again.

OK, maybe too early to knee jerk on replacing Zola however if WHU does not improve soon what are the options, surely too late to save the season if left much longer. How about this then; if the Dave's are prepared to spend 100k/week on a striker to get out of the crap, what about spending it on an experienced senior manager to sit alongside Zola for the rest of the season.