Translating West Ham press conference spin into English

by DannyUK

Having suffered, sorry, supported West Ham for many years now, I have grown used to their constant press conferences and the various rumours that circulate. Unfortunately, I’ve also become accustomed to the actual outcomes too.

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With that in mind, and using actual past events, including comments from yesterday’s West Ham press conference, I present to you “The Translation”

The Press Conference

taken from The official West Ham Utd website.

“We hope that within the next few days that one or two more [signings] may get clinched.” translates to: it’s more hope than expectation, though.

“[Andy Carroll is] training well, training with us today and hopefully very shortly he’ll be seen on the bench in the next week or so Carroll will be back on the bench.” translates to: this means we have an excuse to not sign any strikers in this transfer window despite Carroll seemingly being made of glass and liable to break down and be ruled out for the season. This will probably happen within 24 hours of the transfer window closing.

“No, we don’t need a goalkeeper, we’re very comfortable in that area with the four goalkeepers we have here so we’re OK in that department.” translates to: a few clean sheets at the start of the season means we can ignore the poor form since October. Besides, we have four keepers that can (apparently) play first team football. That’s plenty. It’s about quantity, not quality

“The one big thing about Roger Johnson is his Premier League experience at Birmingham City, his height in terms of being a central defender which has been one of our weak points recently and his desire to come and show that he has still got the capabilities to play at this level.” translates to: Expect to see him playing up front on his own before the end of February because his height with long balls being punted towards him.

“We don’t have to beat [Man City] on Wednesday night we have to come back with something realistic to beat them at home if we can.” translates to: Prepare yourselves for West Ham to play the ever popular “only playing for a small loss” tactic.

The Historical situations

We are in for a big name. (Historically these bushes have included Van Nistelrooy, Thierry Henry and Beckham translates to: We won’t sign them, though, but at least the fans get the impression we are trying, and seeing as we spoke to their agent once, it’s not strictly a lie

Due to financial fair play, we can’t afford to sign anyone translates to: This could mean anything. Last time we said this, we then resigned Carlton Cole, and I’m pretty sure he isn’t playing for free.

Ravel Morrison (or historically, Scott Parker) has been linked with a move away translates to: When the transfer window closes, the fact he’s still playing for West Ham means we will declare that we had a successful transfer window despite not signing any decent players.

I remain, as always, cynical when it comes to West Ham.

You can read a previous article here about West Ham transfer rumours on Twitter

The pictures of the West Ham badge and gate were kindly supplied by toastbrot81 on Flickr.

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