where abouts did I suggest that then? Never said you hated him, you just thought he was **** and booed him in the process because you thought he was being favoured rather than picked based on talent.
Bollocks. A lot of good players 17-18 never make the grade. A lot of players continue to develop into their late 20s. 'Peak' is generally considered to be 28, so to suggest Lampard was 'near his peak' at the age of 22 is just plain bollocks. He was a 12 million rated player when we bought him. Many said at the time, not least those west ham suckers who now rib him at every opportunity, that he wasn't worth that much and only got into the west ham team because of his uncle. At Chelsea, he turned into a 20 goal a season goalscoring midfielder, runner up for the ballon d'or in 2005, probably worth touching 40 million at his peak. Over the course of ELEVEN years AT CHELSEA - that's all you need to know. He was treated badly, and continues to be treated badly, with no respect or appreciation by west ham. Small wonder he's been shoving their vitriol back down their throats ever since he got here. They don't like it, they can't ****ing take it, and we love it. Just love it.
Players do not reach there prime at 28, that is complete and utter nonsense. Attacking players in particular hit there prime around 23-24. All you have to do is look at the ages of recent world players of the year, most of them in there mid 20s. None of them are 28+. In fact the likes of Kaka and Ronaldinho were past there best at that age. Not that he was ever WPOTY quality, but take a look at Torres, brilliant player from about 21-26, loses a yard of pace and now he's useless. Goalkeepers and centre half's probably reach there peak about 28, but alot of attacking players start to decline at around that age
Kind of agree with that... look at Owen. Tore the world up at 19 to early 20's then injuries hit, lost that half yard pace and regular game time and never made it back to those heights. But every player is different! Some peak early, some late... Take Grant Holt for example, admittedly not a top class player in the ranks of Lampard/Owen/Kaka etc but a few years ago he was playing for Shrewsbury and all his career he was down the lower ranks of the footballing leagues... moved to Norwich and his career took off. It just varies player to player.
In a way it's a shame that we couldn't see how good Lampard would have become had he spent his entire Chelsea career under Mourihno
WPOTY: Zidane, 30; Weah, 30, Figo, 28, Cannavaro (OK, defender), 33. Ronaldo at his peak now: 28. I would agree that many players do peak early though.
Little bit unfair old boy. I accept that our fans were wrong. I'm merely pointing out that your own fans are in no position to call us "scum" due to the fact that your own fans are guilty of exactly the same. With regards to Lampard, I've always liked him as do a lot of my West Ham supporting friends. When he was at West Ham, he did have some dips in form but he seemed to be picked regardless. That was what the fans took objection to. His class as a player was obvious for all to see though. I think our relationship with some of our former players is a shame as we should be proud that they came through our academy. Having said that, Rio, Joe Cole and Carrick have always received great welcomes on their returns to the Boleyn whenever they have visited with their new clubs. The hostility from our fans towards Lampard and Defoe, rightly or wrongly, is due to the circumstances in which they left the club and some of their comments afterwards. Lampard was a young lad when he left us with bags of potential. Chelsea continued his development upto and beyond his peak years and he has had a truly wonderful career. Both clubs should take credit for the player his is today. Lampard himself would agree he owes a lot to Tony Carr aswell as the Chelsea staff.
Bear in mind that I did say I still like Frank Lampard. The point I am making is that West Ham fans don't just mindlessly hate all former players. I seem to remember some of his comments after he left being a little provoking. Things along the lines of " it's good to finally be at a big club with proper fans". I'm also pretty sure he once said he would love to score the goal that relegates us. None of it is that bad and to be fair, after his Dad and Uncle had just been given the sack, he was probably just letting emotion control his comments.
Fair point. But hammers singing about cancer etc not nice. Do you think he would have been dropped at west ham if his family were not running the team?
If 20 or 30 fans want to sing about awful things at football matches then that's sad. When you consider how isolated it is among thousands of other fans however, you see how much of a minority they are in. All clubs have these fans. We all wish they wouldn't bother turning up but what can you do?
And yeah I do think there were times when Lampard should have been dropped at West Ham. But there are times now when I think Nolan should be dropped. I just think managers get their favourites who become 'undroppable'. Lampard was obviously a favourite because he happened to be the managers nephew. And I'm not saying he was **** or wasn't good enough for us. I'm just saying he continued to get picked at times when he wasn't playing well.
Until proper fans start standing up to these morons, it'll go on. Agree all clubs have them but there does seem to be some really low nasty **** that comes out of some of the West Ham bunch. The hissing at Spurs, cancer comments at Lamps etc is ****ing disgusting, even worse than racism in my view which you at least could put down to older 'fans' growing up in a different less liberal time.
Exactly, Shergar is just picking and chosing to suit his argument, and he accuses us for doing that! Hypocrite or what. For every player he choses that peaks at 23-24, I can pick another that peaks 27-28. He's talking complete bollocks. Regardless Lampard peaked around 2007/8 which would have made him... 29-30? The point is that Lampard made Lampard the player he is today, at Chelsea, not at Wham.
I don't understand this debate about which club made Lampard the player he is today? At West Ham he learnt the game under Tony Carr, his Dad and Redknapp. Chelsea signed him (for a big fee which suggests West Ham must have developed into at least a half decent player) as a 21 year old with bags of potential and they developed him further during his "peak" years. I am sure Frank himself would say he owes as much to the staff at West Ham as he does the staff at Chelsea.
Both clubs contributed without question. We paid around 10 million for Frank and that was 10 years ago so that's a sizeable fee. He continued to develop a lot under us and became one of the best midfielders in the world. Would he have done that at West Ham, probably not; but he probably wouldn't have broken through if in our youth set up originally. That batch of WH English youngsters probably the best in the last 10 years. J Cole, Rio, Lamps, Carrick, Defoe. All became established internations and 3 won the Champions League.
You could add Glen Johnson to that list, not as good as the others, but has become Englands main RB for the last few years. Scary to think what West Ham could have acheived had they manage to keep the "Golden Generation" together...
