2006–07 West Ham United F.C. season

Review

Former West Ham player Carlos Tévez

The team started the 2006-2007 campaign brightly, but slipped down the table due to off the field distractions. West Ham were knocked out from UEFA Cup by Italian Serie A side Palermo (0-1 and 0-3) and saw themselves dragged into the relegation zone.

Eventually an Icelandic consortium, led by Eggert Magnússon, bought the club on 26 November 2006. Following a poor run of form leaving the club in 17th position (despite the signing of big name players like Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tévez, who both failed to perform to expectation for much of the season), the new owners sacked Alan Pardew, replacing him with former West Ham player Alan Curbishley who had recently ended a 15-year spell in charge of Charlton. Curbishley's first game was at home against Manchester United that the team won 1-0. However, The Hammers then drew at Craven Cottage in their next game and continued to struggle, being subsequently trounced 6-0 by newly promoted side Reading, and knocked out of the FA cup by the rock bottom team Watford. An end-to-end thriller at home to Spurs ended with West Ham losing 4-3 in the last seconds of the game having been 3-2 in front with minutes to play, but the bright performance signified a change in form.

At the same time the signings of Mascherano and Tévez were being investigated by the Premier League, who were concerned that details regarding the transfers had been omitted from official records. Also, whether or not the influence of MSI (led by Kia Joorabchian) breached Premier League rules regarding third party ownership of players (rules U.18 and B.13) came into question. The media at this time touted the idea Tévez's contract could be terminated, possibly resulting in a deduction of points for playing an "ineligible" player (despite Premier League statements to the contrary). On April 27, 2007, West Ham pleaded guilty and were handed a record £5.5 million fine by the Premier League. The club did, however, avoid a points deduction. Liverpool's signing of Mascherano was investigated and he was cleared to play after a 2 week delay.

Following on from this event the Wigan Athletic chairman Dave Whelan threatened legal action supported by other relegation threatened sides including Fulham and Sheffield Utd; "This is a very serious offence West Ham committed...They broke the law, told blatant lies and should have got a 10-point penalty. If we can sue West Ham or the Premier League, I am sure that will happen." whilst manager Paul Jewell suggested League officials had intimated they wished to see them relegated. West Ham defeated relegation rivals Wigan Athletic 3-0 at the JJB Stadium and in doing so drew equal to them on points. They subsequently went on to beat Bolton 3-1 and ultimately escaped relegation by winning seven of their last nine games including a 1-0 win over Arsenal, and on the last day of the season defeating newly crowned League Champions Manchester United 1-0 to finish outside the relegation zone in 15th.

Current squad

As of 13 May 2007.

No.		Player	Pos	Eur Apps	Eur Gls	Lge Apps	Lge Gls	FAC Apps	FAC Gls	LC Apps	LC Gls	Tot Apps	Tot Gls	Date Signed	Previous Club
First XI (Most appearances)
21		Robert Green	GK	-	-	26	-	-	-	1	-	27	-	16 August 2006	Norwich
18		Jonathan Spector	RB	1	-	17 (8)	-	1 (1)	-	-	-	19 (9)	-	15 June 2006	Manchester United
3		Paul Konchesky	LB	2	-	22	-	-	-	0 (1)	-	24 (1)	-	5 July 2005	Charlton Athletic
4		Danny Gabbidon	CB	2	-	18	-	1	-	1	-	22	-	5 July 2005	Cardiff City
5		Anton Ferdinand	CB	1	-	31	-	1	-	1	-	34	-	14 December 2002	Academy
17		Hayden Mullins	CM	-	-	20 (9)	2	1	1	1	-	23 (9)	3	23 October 2003	Crystal Palace
15		Yossi Benayoun	RM	1 (1)	-	25 (4)	3	1	-	-	-	27 (5)	3	16 July 2005	Racing Santander
20		Nigel Reo-Coker	CM	2	-	35	1	1	-	1	-	39	1	22 January 2004	Wimbledon
25		Bobby Zamora	CF	1 (1)	-	27 (5)	11	1 (1)	-	1	-	30 (7)	11	2 February 2004	Tottenham Hotspur
32		Carlos Tévez H.O.Y.	CF	2	-	19 (7)	7	1	-	-	-	22 (7)	7	31 August 2006	Corinthians
11		Matthew Etherington	LM	0 (1)	-	24 (3)	-	0 (1)	-	0 (1)	-	24 (6)	-	4 August 2003	Tottenham Hotspur
Players with 10+ starting appearances
10		Marlon Harewood	CF	1 (1)	-	19 (13)	3	-	-	1	1	21 (14)	4	25 November 2003	Nottingham Forest
29		Lee Bowyer	RM	2	-	18 (2)	-	-	-	-	-	20 (2)	-	8 June 2006	Newcastle United
6		George McCartney	LB	-	-	16 (6)	-	2	-	1	-	19 (6)	-	8 August 2006	Sunderland
19		James Collins	CB	1	-	16	-	-	-	-	-	17	-	5 July 2005	Cardiff City
1		Roy Carroll	GK	2	-	12	-	2	-	-	-	16	-	15 June 2005	Manchester United
7		Christian Dailly	D/M	-	-	10 (4)	-	2	-	1	-	13 (4)	-	17 January 2001	Blackburn Rovers
2		Lucas Neill	RB	-	-	11	-	1	-	-	-	12	-	22 January 2007	Blackburn Rovers
24		Mark Noble	CM	-	-	10	2	1	1	-	-	11	3	1 July 2003	Academy
13		Luis Boa Morte	LM	-	-	8 (6)	1	2	-	-	-	10 (6)	1	5 January 2007	Fulham
Other players with appearances
12		Carlton Cole	CF	1 (1)	-	5 (12)	2	2	1	-	-	8 (13)	3	5 July 2006	Chelsea
33		Nigel Quashie	CM	-	-	7	-	1	-	-	-	8	-	8 January 2007	West Brom
(16)		Javier Mascherano	CM	2	-	3 (2)	-	-	-	-	-	5 (2)	-	31 August 2006	Corinthians
27		Calum Davenport	CB	-	-	5 (1)	-	-	-	-	-	5 (1)		18 January 2007	Tottenham Hotspur
8		Teddy Sheringham	CF	0 (1)	-	4 (13)	2	0 (1)	-	0 (1)	-	4 (16)	2	14 July 2004	Portsmouth
14		John Paintsil	RB	-	-	3 (2)	-	0 (1)	-	1	-	4 (3)	-	1 August 2006	Hapoel Tel Aviv
(2)		Tyrone Mears	RB	1	-	3 (2)	-	-	-	-	-	4 (2)	-	6 July 2006	Preston North End
35		Matthew Upson	CB	-	-	2	-	-	-	-	-	2	-	31 January 2007	Birmingham
37		Kepa Blanco	CF	-	-	1 (7)	1	-	-	-	-	1 (7)	1	23 January 2007	on loan from Sevilla
26		Shaun Newton	M	-	-	0 (3)	-	1 (1)	-	-	-	1 (4)	-	10 March 2005	Wolves
28		Kyel Reid	LM	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	1	-	1 July 2004	Academy
Players without appearances
(8)		Adam Wolfe	CM	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	14 December 2006	Academy
9		Dean Ashton	CF	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	23 January 2006	Norwich
22		Tony Stokes	M	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1 July 2005	Academy
23		Jimmy Walker	GK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	10 June 2004	Walsall
30		James Tomkins	CB	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1 July 2005	Academy
31		Marek Štěch	GK	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	31 August 2006	Sparta Prague
-		Hogan Ephraim	M	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1 July 2004	Academy
-		Yaniv Katan	CF	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	3 January 2006	Maccabi Haifa

Premier League

Matches

1	West Ham	3–1	Charlton
	Zamora  52, 65' C. Cole  90'		D. Bent  15' (pen.)

2	Watford	1–1	West Ham
	King  63'		Zamora  65'

3	Liverpool	2–1	West Ham
	Agger  42' Crouch  45'		Zamora  12'

4	West Ham	1–1	Aston Villa
	Zamora  52'		Ridgewell  4'

5	West Ham	0–2	Newcastle
			Duff  50' Martins  75'

6	Manchester City	2–0	West Ham
	Samaras  50, 63'

7	West Ham	0–1	Reading
			Seol  2'

8	Portsmouth	2–0	West Ham
	Kanu  28' A. Cole  82'

9	Tottenham	1–0	West Ham
	Mido  45'

10	West Ham	2–1	Blackburn
	Sheringham  20' Mullins  80'		Bentley  90'

11	West Ham	1–0	Arsenal
	Harewood  89'

12	Middlesbrough	1–0	West Ham
	Maccarone  74'

13	Chelsea	1–0	West Ham
	Geremi  22'

14	West Ham	1–0	Sheffield United
	Mullins  36'

15	West Ham	0–2	Wigan
			Cotterill  51' Spector  58' (o.g.)

16	Everton	2–0	West Ham
	Osman  51' Vaughan  90'

17	Bolton	4–0	West Ham
	Davies  17, 52' Diouf  77' Anelka  78'

18	West Ham	1–0	Manchester United
	Reo-Coker  75'

19	Fulham	0–0	West Ham

20	West Ham	1–2	Portsmouth
	Sheringham  81'		Primus  16, 38'

21	West Ham	0–1	Manchester City
			Beasley  83'

22	Reading	6–0	West Ham
	Gunnarsson  12' Hunt  15' A. Ferdinand  30' (o.g.) Doyle  36, 78' Lita  53'

23	West Ham	3–3	Fulham
	Zamora  28' Benayoun  46, 64'		Radzinski  16' McBride  59' Christanval  90'

24	Newcastle	2–2	West Ham
	Milner  45' Solano  53' (pen.)		C. Cole  18' Harewood  22'

25	West Ham	1–2	Liverpool
	Kepa  77'		Kuyt  46' Crouch  53'

26	Aston Villa	1–0	West Ham
	Carew  36'

27	West Ham	0–1	Watford
			Henderson  12'

28	Charlton	4–0	West Ham
	Ambrose  24' Thomas  34, 80' D. Bent  41'

29	West Ham	3–4	Tottenham
	Noble  16' Tévez  41' Zamora  85'		Defoe  51' (pen.) Tainio  63' Berbatov  89' Stalteri  90'

30	Blackburn	1–2	West Ham
	Samba  47'		Tévez  71' (pen.) Zamora  75'

31	West Ham	2–0	Middlesbrough
	Zamora  2' Tévez  45'

32	Arsenal	0–1	West Ham
			Zamora  45'

33	Sheffield United	3–0	West Ham
	Tonge  39' Jagielka  68' Stead  78'

34	West Ham	1–4	Chelsea
	Tévez  35'		Wright-Phillips  31, 36' Kalou  52' Drogba  62'

35	West Ham	1–0	Everton
	Zamora  13'

36	Wigan	0–3	West Ham
			Boa Morte  30' Benayoun  57' Harewood  62'

37	West Ham	3–1	Bolton
	Tévez  10, 21' Noble  29'		Speed  67'

38	Manchester United	0–1	West Ham
			Tévez  45'