Wafer-thin West Ham's survival chances are getting slimmer every week without a new owner

By Mark Lawrenson

Published 20:38 16/10/09

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West Ham and Birmingham have both got money problems down at the bottom of the Premier League. But there the similarities end.

The Upton Park club has not got two pennies to rub together after their original Icelandic owners went bust following crazy expenditure in the transfer market.

But new Blues owner Carson Yeung was mad to announce the £40m  the club has to spend in the January window.

I am sure Alex McLeish is tearing his hair out at the prospect of being held to ransom now the nouveau riche club has declared they are looking to spend top dollar at Harrods rather than Primark from now on. Whichever players he was interested in, the price has just shot skywards.

Yet I bet Gianfranco Zola wished he had such worries. The Italian's transfer activity has been more like a Sunday morning car boot sale with two directors needing to subsidise one loan deal.

The former Birmingham owner David Sullivan is clearly interested in investing his profit from Birmingham in the East End team he supported as a boy - at the right, knockdown price. Yet if he hangs around for too much longer, West Ham could be in serious relegation trouble.

The Hammers have not won in the Premier League since the opening day of the season and you just cannot see them getting a result at Stoke today.

It is a real physical challenge to go to the Britannia Stadium and you can end up getting bullied.

A lot of teams go up there and cannot cope with the challenge

and you only need a couple of players to be not up for it and you have got no chance

You can imagine Tony Pulis geeing up his players before kick off to tear into them.

West Ham's squad is wafer thin. They need the English spine of their team - Robert Green, Matthew Upson, Scott Parker, Mark Noble and Carlton Cole - fit and playing every week. They are just a couple of injuries away from a crisis, especially if Cole were to be ruled out for a long stretch.

James Tomkins is a good prospect for the future but he and the other young players are being relied upon every week because of the lack of resources.

Zola did a wonderful job with Steve Clarke last season and his side played their way to ninth in the table.

Yet in the summer all the big teams added players to their squad and if you are not improving in the Premier League, then you are getting worse. Effectively swapping James Collins for Alessandro Diamanti was the only real business.

Last January we thought there would be a firesale in January and they got away with selling only Craig Bellamy. Now they haven't got many more to sell. And other clubs will only want to buy their good players.

It would be sad for English football if West Ham go down because of the financial mismanagement of the original Icelandic owners.

The club's academy has produced so many outstanding players for the Premier League and England and they always play good football.

Yet there is little sentiment at the bottom of the table. It is the same as last year with eight teams in a real dogfight. There is not a great deal between them and it will come down to who is going to get most goals, especially against their nearest opponents. Portsmouth and Hull look lightest up front along with Birmingham and the Hammers.

Even now in October, we are looking forward to January to see who will buy in the extra firepower to make the difference. And while Birmingham will be able to splash the cash at exorbitant prices, West Ham will need new owners by then to join the survival spending spree.

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