Faubert Out But Will Noble Get His Chance?

More bad news for West Ham fans today, as their new signing Julien Faubert is ruled out for 6 months after rupturing his achilles tendon in a friendly on the 17 July. Bloody painful injury, and no-one likes to see this kind of news, but he's a young player and will come back for the second half of the season. It does leave the Hammers looking pretty weak in midfield after losing Reo-Coker and Benayoun, but I hope that Noble plays a bigger role this season, and this injury could be his chance to step up. He really impressed during the U-21 European Championship and if he gets a good run of games this season then he could really emerge as a top player. We saw some of his passion for West Ham at then end of last season, and game time will allow him to develop his technical abilities but Curbishley needs to take a risk and put him in.

The problem is the fear of failure. If Noble doesn't perform in the first few games then Curbishley will drop him, when what he probable needs is more games to start playing better. But if Curbishley gives him these games and he still fails then the team would have lost points in the time and gained nothing, putting Curbishley in the firing line. It's a very hard situation for a manager to be in but with the money West Ham have, they can afford to give Noble a run of games if they buy a decent squad midfielder who can come in if Noble fails to perform. They can then bring in a top midfielder, if needed, in the January transfer window. Of course it's easier said then done because the squad midfielder might also not perform, and with all that money Curbishley is going to be tempted just to bring in a top player now. I hope that Noble gets the games he needs as he may just emerge as a very good Premiership midfielder.

In other news, Stuart Pearce has been appointed the permanent manager of the England U-21 side. It's a good appointment, Pearce needs to learn more about the tactical side of the game before he goes back into club management, and the time he spends watching Premiership games in between U-21 fixtures will help him develop as a manager. We've also seen that at U-21 level you don't need to be a tactical genius to win games. The Euro U-21 Championship showed that England could compete with the top teams just by playing the natural 4-4-2 sytem with the right balance in players being more important then getting the tactics spot on. This is a good appointment for both England and Pearce.

Fulham have continued their spending spree with the signing of Lee Cook from QPR for 2.5 million. He has impressed in the Championship but it is obviously a big step up to the Premiership. He'll take a while to settle but he should offer some width into a Fulham side that seems to lack natural wide players. A team needs balance, and the signing of a wide player brings some more balance into the Fulham side. I think this will probably be the last of Al Fayed's spending, and what a spree it has been, 7 players brought in for around 20 million pounds, but is Sanchez a good enough manager to move them up the table. I don't think they'll get relegated but I'm not sure that Lawrie will take them higher then mid-table. The jury is out.

As some of you may be aware, the AFC Asian Cup is currently taking place in South East Asia. I have not been reporting on it because I placed the Copa America as more important, but since the Copa is over and we have had a special request on the comments page of yesterday's blog, I shall now update you on how it has been going. The 8 teams that have made it to the Quarter finals are: Iraq, Japan, Republic of Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Vietnam and Uzbekistan. China were the big team to get knocked out in the group stages after drawing against Iran and suffering a shcok loss to Uzbekistan. Australia only just managed to scrape through in their group after losing to Iraq and drawing to Oman, pretty shocking stuff from one of the pre-tournament favourites. If you go to this website http://www.afcasiancup.com/en/news/index.asp, then you will learn more. I have seen little of the tournament but thought the standard of football may not be top class, there are still some decent players to watch out for, and it can only get better with the quarters coming up.

Nashat Akram is one player to look out for. He is playing for Iraq and inspired their victroy over Australia, he has also been linked to Sunderland. Maksim Shatskikh of Uzbekistan, and Dinamo Kiev, has also caught the eye after coring in their group games, including a goal against China. The Japanese would be my favourites for the title but I would not count out Australia as in cup competitions, the eventual winner is usually a team that didn't perform well in the Group stages. We saw it with Brazil in the Copa, and with Italy at the last World Cup. They're actually playing each other in the quarter final on saturday, and that should be a game worth watching.

Bit of a long post today but have to keep you on your toes during the pre-season but don't worry, only a few weeks till the beginning of the new season, I can't wait.