Alan Curbishley was once touted as a potential England national manager. Today he is touting his P45. The club’s website is still carrying a rather horrible example of corporate speak: “West Ham are looking to a bright future after a summer of consolidation and a positive start to the new season…the club is fully comitted to a high qulaity first team squad based on solid financial foundations that will challenge at the top of the Premier League…” Funnily enough West Ham are fifth as the infant table stands, and but for a sending off might have got more than a 3-0 drubbing at Eastlands by a drab Manchester City. This blog has written before now the malaise in this case has nothing to do with results. The “high quality” first team squad is full of notable miscreants like Lee Bowyer and Craig Bellamy. It would be entertaining if reserve keeper James Walker’s programme notes which according to the club web site “spills the beans on what happens in the dressing room” revealed more about the post Blackburn match altercation between Australian skipper Lucas Niell, Mathew Upson and Curbishley where the team told the manager they had saved his job for him. Currently West Ham look like a dog without a bone. They are 8/1 to be relegated which is tempting.

While the rest of football was actively engaged in the globalisation of their Premnier League brand, one club was noticeable going the other way. Good old West Ham paid £6m to Lazio for Valon Behrami, paid for by the sale of John Pantsil and Bobby Zamora  to Fulham for £6.3m. They off loaded the once promising Richard Wright to Ipswich, for an undisclosed fee, Anton Ferdinand was sold to Sunderland, for another undisclosed fee thought to be about $8million and  George McCartney also went to  Sunderland for another £6million or so. So that is £15 million or so in the bank and relegation on the way?

Carlton Cole and Lee Bowyer celebrate a placid victory obver Macclesfield this week. The desease at the heart of English soccer probably has its most vivid symptoms at West Ham. The Hammers for those you who are not as yet old enough to recall fed the English World Cup winning team of 1966 with Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters. West Ham used to be known as the academy of football. This was how the game was supposed to be played. They didn’t win much, true but the philosophy was entertainment.

Take a look at this, almost English team, team:

David James, Glen Johnston, Rio Ferdinand, Anton Ferdinand, Nigel Rio Coker, Frank Lampard, Xavier Mascherano, Joe Cole, Carlos Tevez, Jermaine Defoe and Frederic Kanoute. Subs: Benayoun and Michael Carrick…and quite a few others

In fact Fabio Capello could take a look at this team and swap the Argentianians for Wayne Rooney and Owen Hargreaves and you sort of think they could play like a good team at international level

All sold by West Ham. You might say that is a team capable of breaking into the top four instead of scrabbling around mid table. And they they even have an English manager to boot. And you could say ex managerHarry Redknapp has probably got the edge on Alan Curbishley too and might have masterminded just such a bid .

All were sold for less than perhaps they were fully worth in an open admission that this club is just a feeder facility for richer men. The poor men of the East End. Poor in terms of ambition, for sure.

Unlike Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, they have not really swapped like for like. Wenger’s belief in youth relies on a certain amount of churn. It is part of his philsophy. And he has tended to sell on players past their prime, or for outrageous sums of money, or both. West Ham have done neither. Joe Cole was £6million. Lampard looked expensive at £12million but with hindsight he was a snip. And so for the rest too as Manchester United sealed the deal on Carlos Tevez at £32million.

Of all the clubs in the Premiership, this is the one that deserves a new board of directors. For English football’s sake and for Fabio Capello’s sake.

Bet West Ham? There’s £10 for nothing, so you are not risking too much!

How good are West Ham? How bad are City without their £19million investment in Jo away at the Olympics for another few days at least. It was a good start for the Hammers but ultimately it was Dean Ashton’s form after two seasons dogged by uinjury that made the difference against Wigan and might again this weekend? Away win. Get all the odds here

There will be no gang of four this year, despite the pundits saying the title is a done deal. All the omens and labrador bones point in other directions. If United lose Ronaldo that is 42 goals off their goal difference which would put them mid table. Even if they get someone in to replace the Portugese, they are unlikely to score so prolifically and if Ronaldo stays nor will he.

Chelsea may take a year off under Felipe Scolari and just focus on the Champions League - but it is a good team and a couple of exceptional wingers could get them off to a flyer but probably Scolari will take his time.  Only Arsene Wenger really knows what his team can do and possibly his visit to the Spain v Italy match last night was a scouting trip to look at David Villa. A straight swap for the African Player of the Year Adebayor going to Milan must be tempting. Meanwhile one wonders how many times Rafa Benitez can mix up his jigsaw puzzle before he gets it right. Or maybe the answer to the conundrum abhout England’s finest player Steven Gerrard is that no one can play with him? Villa would be an obvious Anfield target too. Surely at least one of these teams and maybe more will start dropping points to the teams underneath them.

But behind the familiar miscreants are shaping new forces. Juande Ramos’s Tottenham look interesting as does new signing Mondric who must make an impact. Harry Redknapp is not out of the mix either. Goals win titles and he picked up Jermaine Defoe last year and paired possibly with Peter Crouch and one other they will notch up the points. Aston Villa under Martin O’Neill are tight and organised and only one or two players short of calibre, even if they lose Gareth Barry to Liverpool. Mark Hughes has an interesting proposition at Manchester City, especially if he gets both Jo and Ronaldinho up front- and can get both to play. Everton too are capable and only a couple of signings short of worrying the bigger teams. Anyone of those five might challenge. All seem to have the money and maybe this year the top four will take more points off each other, or even the top eight will scrap it out.

There might also be a case that West Brom make a flying start to the season, again nibbling points off the upper echelons. West Ham will have a better team than last year if their injured team stays fit.  The magician Roy Keane could also start to make his mark if he can pick up a couple of good players. Newcastle look wobbly, as do Middlesbrough but with Hull and Stoke looking like return-to-senders, that leaves just one relegation slot for the teams that escaped last year to avoid.

None of which points to another season of big four domination.

Check the odds out here for the first Saturday, August 16