Palermo 3 -0 West Ham (And Other Ramblings)

1. Get Your Excuses In First

This will be a short update. Mainly because I'm slowly losing the will to live, let alone type, after watching us play.

2. Those Sheets? How About Keeping 'Em Clean?

Our inability to prevent the opposition from scoring must be driving Alan Pardew out of his mind. I know that if I had one it would be boggled. I know we weren't exactly all that solid last year but the River Thames currently has a better defence than we do.

3. Where The Hell Is Danny Gabbidon And What Have You Done With Him?

Playing half the Welsh back 4 was probably asking for it in retrospect.

4. Televisual Injury

I'm comfortable with my sexuality. I'm not too bothered about losing to a team who play in pink. That said I think my retinas are bleeding from watching the highlights of that game. The trick was not to stare straight at the Palermo shirts.

5. I've Seen My Ghost

Jonathan Spector does exist! He's better than Tyrone Mears at right back. This qualifies as faint praise.

6. If We Didn't Have Bad Luck We'd Have None At All

The goals scored by the 'Rosanero' had a touch of luck about them over the course of the two games. Which is specious reasoning, but you can't deny that it is reasoning none the less. The fact that we did not score in the period before half time was the defining point of the game. Even at 1-0 down we still needed just our customary 2 goal second half turnaround to go through but it wasn't to be.

Carlton Cole HAS to score with his header though.

Despite the margin of defeat I can't condemn this loss as being quite so excreable as recent performances. Which is like saying that Will Young isn't as bad as Robbie Williams.

At least we had a sniff of a goal this time. I'd still prefer it if we played South America's best young forward up front rather than on the left wing, on account of how it doesn't seem like the best use of either Carlos Tevez or our left wing.

7. Purtroppo Sono Inglese

Some of those Italian lads were quite dirty. And they dived. And several of them wasted time. I'm shocked, next you'll be telling me that agents are bad for the game.

8. The Stats

We won the corner count 11-6. We've gone 6 and a half hours without a goal and this was our heaviest ever European defeat. I have to go now, I'm going to see if I can hack off a kneecap with my season ticket.......