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Why West Ham must look to the future after the days of Parker

After signing in 2007 for £7 million, Scott Parker enjoyed four seasons at West Ham, being awarded ‘Hammer of the Year’ in his final three.  So, after selling him to Tottenham (excuse the bad language there) for a loss of £2 million, why should Hammers fans feel pleased?

What you have to remember is that Parker was on ridiculous wages for a team destined for a relegation fight last season, and with 4 years remaining on that contract, would almost certainly not have accepted a pay cut.  Considering that he was on £70,000 a week, we a knocking a huge £3.64 million a year off our wage bill – a much-needed gesture for a side with over £100 million in debts and drastically trying to improve their financial situation.

In terms of replacements, you would have to congratulate Sam Allardyce on signing his own ‘Captain Fantastic’ in Kevin Nolan.  What a lot of fans need reminding is that Nolan captained Newcastle to the Championship title two seasons ago, where he played alongside another target of ours (albeit not signed up) in Joey Barton.  We have our box-to-box alternative in Henri Lansbury and, although I can honestly say I don’t know an awful lot about him, the Arsenal fans I know say that he is one for the future.  However, Wenger apparently doesn’t rate him highly, which suggests that he may leave for nothing by the end of the year.

Of course, both Mark Noble and Jack Collison are academy graduates who should be pushing Lansbury for a start, and Papa Bouba Diop can come on with fifteen minutes remaining to play out the games, but it seems as if the Arsenal loanee will be a regular in Allardyce’s lineup.  It seems that Scott Parker will be forgotten, especially with a successful Championship campaign in front of us.  A push for the title should hopefully not elude us, and the valuable rebuilding time we have will give us solid foundations with which to build a decent mid-table Premiership squad.

At the end of the day, I have only one question – who would rather have the starting XIs of QPR, Norwich, Swansea, Wigan, Blackburn, Wolves or Stoke than the side that we have at the moment?  I know which I’d rather have, and it comes from the league of the fizzy pop.

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