curbs becomes hammers boss but lets worry about ourselves Not surprisingly Curbs was named Hammers manager this afternoon and whether he is the right man or not for the job can't concern us, only except when he brings them to The Valley in February. By this time we would have played 10 more games and our fate will be a lot clearer.

If the timing was right West Ham would always have been Curbishley's preferred destination, even though he turned them down once. I wonder how he will deal with the Argentinians and how he will spend the expected £20+ million in January, his recent record of spending big money was not great and if we sell Darren Bent to one of our relegation rivals, then that will send a message to me that Murray has seriously lost his marbles and our beloved football club too.

I also question how Curbs' will cope without someone like Richard Murray to confer with, Murray has clearly strugged with independence, however it will rub further salt into our chairman's ever opening wound if his friend kept West Ham up at the expense of us.

But we need to worry about ourselves and not what is going on across the river. I would prefer Pardew or even a short-term fix because staying in the Premiership is everything. I don't believe Murray will make a another change although who knows what is going on in his mind at the moment.

Meanwhile this from Les Reed today: "We have got some injured players back now, so the squad's getting slightly bigger. We've got some home games to play before Christmas, so those things are in our favour. By January, we'll be in a healthier position, but it's not going to be easy - it's going to be a long haul."

He is trying but is anyone listening?  ¶ 14:09