Hammer Horror

"Boss, can you hold onto my shirt for the next three weeks whilst I'm out injured? I need both hands free to pick up my sick pay."

Oh to be a West Ham fan at the moment: From blowing bubbles to wanting to blow your brains out in the space of ten months.

What sort of odds would you have got that a team that had a top ten finish last season - and who were within seconds of winning the FA Cup - could plumb to such depths? And that was only after they'd signed two genuinely world class footballers?

Retreads of that most famous of West Ham mantras: 'They're too good to go down' was brought into sharp relief in recent weeks after the Hammers got spanked 6-0 by Reading and 4-0 by Bolton in the space of a few games, and resulted in the new Icelandic owners stumping up the cash for Curbs shore up the defence, but what happens?

Six million dollar pound man, Matthew Upson, lasts only 28 minutes on his debut before limping off against Aston Villa, and news now reaches me that the sixty grand a week man, Lucas Neill, went off injured after 32 minutes - admittedly, 4 minutes more staying power than Paddy Considine lookalike Upson - in yesterday's 1-0 home defeat against Watford, erm, two weeks after he went off injured on his West Ham debut in a 1-0 FA Cup defeat . . . at home . . . against Watford.

Such bad luck for a team's defence can only come in threes and, sure enough, I've received confirmation that sadly Calum Davenport is still fit, and is able to play in West Ham's next game against Charlton.

That game against Charlton is so much more than the cliched six-pointer. Pardew and Curbishley playing musical chairs in the worst of circumstances means that there will be more background to this encounter than a Peter Jackson film.

Going against all my previous preferences, I'm hoping that Charlton do the business against West Ham. I've warmed to Pardew in recent months and, in comparison to Curbishley, he's got the greater mountain to climb with the empty transfer kitty and inheriting the weaker squad.

And part of me wouldn't be too aggrieved if West Ham get relegated this season. I'm still holding out for the possibility that in the next few years the Hammers could be both division sharing and ground sharing with Leyton Orient in East London. Any old iron?