Too many questions, not enough answers...

While it seemed like it might actually be quite refreshing to read an article on the new ownership of West Ham that wasn’t full of trite cliches about how Sullivan and Gold are proper football men who really understand the club’s needs and aren’t like all those nasty foreign owners, when we looked at Darren Lewis’ scare-mongering article it turned out that it wasn’t.

The trouble was that in amongst his reckoning were several rather flimsy assertions and a couple of rhetorical questions which, once answered, rather undermine the arguments. Over to you, Darren:

Why the alarm bells should be ringing at West Ham

The alarm bells are ringing.

When David Gold and David Sullivan took over at West Ham last week, my initial thought was that they would be excellent custodians. [...]

Indeed, when they spoke about their passion for the club on sealing the deal (Sullivan wept, Gwyneth Paltrow-stylee, on national radio as he told of his joy) they won West Ham hearts everywhere.

They went on to tell of the financial wreckage they were picking through with Eggert Magnusson et al throwing money around as if it were confetti.

This would not happen under the new regime, we were promised.

Only for Gold and Sullivan first to tell the world they had offered a a staggering £100,000-a-week to try and secure Ruud Van Nistelrooy. They failed, with the Dutchman opting instead for Hamburg.

But out came the Chuckle Brothers’ chequebook again, this time to offer Eidur Gudjohnsen £60,000-a-week to quit Monaco for Upton Park. Spurs beat them to the punch.

Now, get this, they have handed a two and a half year contract to 32-year-old Benni McCarthy - who has scored just one goal in the League this season.

It’s only silly money if they cannot pay it as part of a much wider financial status. McCarthy isn’t young, and perhaps he’s being overpaid, but if you listen to what the owners are saying, there’s scope to do it. Here’s what was said on January 21st, which, coincidentally, was a time when Darren Lewis still believed that the pair would be ‘excellent custodians’ for the club.

“We can carry one exceptional player, who would make a difference on that wage, but generally we have to bring the wages down and in the summer we would hope to sign younger players on a fraction of those wages.

“We have looked at a few players in the Championship but the reality is that it is no good if they make the grade in 12 months time, we need them to make the grade now.

“We have a crisis and you have to have a different strategy to what our long-term strategy will be.”

So, fairly simple stuff, really - they need a striker, feel they can justify the cost of getting some experienced in immediately, and though it’s not consistent with future plans, relegation is unthinkable, so they have to secure the short term. McCarthy may only have that one goal, but he’s also got experience across Europe and the Premiership, and has the carrot of World Cup 2010 in his homeland. There have been worse deals, especially when others that you have tried, for instance Van Nistelrooy and Gudjohnsen, have not materialised.

They spent long enough planning and executing their strategy in buying the club. Why didn’t they spend as much time on injecting some imagination into their transfer policy? Where is the rabbit-out-of-the-hat signing?

We think trying to sign Ruud van Nistelrooy (incidentally, never officially confirmed by anyone, only the fruit of the media adding two and two together, and coming up with some mysterious number that may be four and may equally be five) would constitute being quite imaginative. And even if we’re sceptical here about the deal being offered in the first place it’s no matter - Darren Lewis evidently believes they tried to make it happen. Besides which, have you got a better idea?

But why not nick Aruna Dindane from Portsmouth, take him on loan until the end of the season and then give him back? Saving the club a wedge of cash in he process.

Well, because it’s impossible. Dindane was signed by Portsmouth on loan - for the time being he still belongs to Lens, if you believe the Portsmouth website. Any better ideas?

A loan move for Landon Donovan before Everton nipped in would have been inspired. Particularly given the way he has exploded onto the Premier League stage.

Again, insane. Sullivan and Gold completed their takeover of West Ham on January 19th. Landon Donovan agreed a loan deal with Everton on December 22nd. It’s a deal that they were only a time machine away from clinching.

So some excellent reasoning from one of our favourite Mirror columnists. We’ll try to leave the final words with Darren, as he tries to get to grips with the concept of a player transferring clubs permanently therefore commanding a transfer fee, while a player going on loan not necessarily doing so:

But I just go back to McCarthy. How is he worth £2.25million when Eidur Gudjohnsen, 32 in September, moves to Spurs on loan? (ie, for nothing).