Paolo goes off on one…

Our old mate Paolo di Canio wasn't too pleased after Swindon let in a late equaliser on Saturday. Imagine how he'd react if they'd lost 3-0 and had two men sent off...

"I've already asked the chairman for three players, now I want four or five otherwise I will discuss my contract," PDC told BBC Wiltshire. "With this team, and this mentality, I can't win the league. Today I didn't recognise this team as my team. After two minutes I said to Fabrizio [Piccareta, assistant manager] 'to win this game we are going to have to be lucky' because four or five players had no courage, no heart, no desire. If we play like today we deserve to be relegated. I have some experience in football. Christmas time is coming and for some of the players it's unusual for them to play over the Christmas period. 

ARE WE NOT MEN?

"Maybe they would like a winter break, they're thinking about shopping, organising somewhere to go next weekend for two or three days. That is typical. Their brains are somewhere else. Maybe Rafa's [Raffaele De Vita] is already in Italy? He is one but there are others - Mehdi [Kerrouche], [Lukas] Magera, [Lander] Gabilondo. I attack Gabilondo because I know he is better than this, and I get angry as his brain is probably in Spain.
"From now on I will not treat them as men, because six or seven don't deserve to be treated as a man. We arranged a day off after next weekend. If they don't win against Morecambe we don't have a day off. They are not man enough to have two or three days off to go and celebrate before Torquay. I'm sorry for the six or seven who always give their best but when we talk about a group, everybody must pay the price."

Reading rampant against red-card Irons

Reading 3 West Ham 0

We’re in Colchester at a boutique B & B celebrating our wedding anniversary (strangely Her Indoors wasn’t tempted by Reading away) wondering what the Romans ever did for us. Matt texts from Reading, revealing that he is in his lucky Dukla Prague away shirt accompanied by WAG Lisa. They're at Reading Art Gallery and Museum for lunch looking at a Robert Gillmor retrospective. I raise the middle class football fan stakes by revealing we’re at Tudor Dancing in the pre-Norman Trinity church made from recycled Roman bricks and stone.

Sadly that lucky Dukla Prague away shirt appears to have turned West Ham into a team of Half-Man Half Biscuit. As we’re touring Colchester Castle, built on the site of the temple sacked by Boudica, we discover that West Ham are also under siege from barbarian tribes. Matt’s text reads: “0-3 down + down to 9 men. 4 minutes left – would take a draw.”

WE'VE ONLY GOT NINE MEN

Our cause isn’t helped by Demel going off injured after two minutes. Looking at The Football League Show, Faubert nearly sets up Collison and we almost score through Diop. In a scrappy game we look fairly comfortable at 0-0 at half-time. But the Irons suffer from Joey O’Brien stupidly getting involved in some handbags with Hunt and then lunging in on McAnuff for two quick yellow cards. From the free kick West Ham reject McAnuff finds space on the left to set up Pearce to score. The second goal sees La Fondre cross over the stranded Green and the unmarked Church head home.

Jack Collison compounds the situation by also getting red-carded. Kebe extracts the urine by miming pulling up his socks and Collison retaliates by clattering into him. He was provoked by Kebe’s showboating, but it’s a stupid reaction.

Reading score a third as Church gets ahead ofCole, on as a sub, to score with another header from a set piece.

Two defeats in a row is getting worrying, though we remain second. Our defence, so solid all season, has conceded five bad goals in two games. Cole had a really good game against Burnley, but was on the bench against Reading, which seems strange from Big Sam, while we have O’Brien and Collison suspended and Taylor, Demel and Baldock injured. Suddenly Barnsley becomes a very important game indeed.

Fit again Irons

Good news is that Henri Lansbury is fit to return to the squad at Reading today, compensating for the possible loss of Matt Taylor again.

Meanwhile it's also pleasing to see Gary O'Neil get 45 minutes action with the development squad after a terrible ankle injury against Aston Villa last season. An unsung team player, he might, arguably, have kept us up last season had he stayed fit. He's still six weeks away from first-team action but O'Neil played in the Portsmouth side that won the Championship and may have a big say in the final 20 games of the season.

Olympian Hammerettes

The Government has controversially doubled the budget for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics to £80 million. Apparently David Cameron saw the original plans and authorised an extra £41 million. A strange decision in this age of austerity and surely a waste of money when the answer lies in E13. Couldn't we just get Jeremy Nicholas and the reformed Hammerettes to do it instead? If The Kids Are United, Bubbles and Twist and Shout would surely get the Games off to a rousing start...

Casuals

Watched the premiere of Cass Pennant’s new documentary film Casuals at Borough High Street’s Roxy Bar last week.

It’s a fascinating piece of soccer sociology, exploring the terrace-inspired Casual look of the 1980s. At the height of Thatcherism, suddenly the terraces were full of lads with wedge cuts wearing Fila, Tacchini, Pringle, Ellesse and pre-chav Burberry.

Produced and written by Pennant, and directed by Nick Kelly, Casuals is narrated by Peter Hooton of The Farm, and has contributions from the likes of Pat Nevin and Paolo Hewitt.

Casuals begins in Brighton and looks at how the mod look was updated by the Casuals. The movement started off in Liverpool, where everyone wanted what they called  “Adeedas” (Adidas) trainers.

The Scousers would use European trips to search out and purloin ever more exclusive brands.  It was all about one-upmanship, and some lads could return from spending a week’s wages on the latest Tacchini gear only to find that another more exclusive label was in vogue. Bizarrely Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe became terrace fashion heroes as the kids bought into Fila and Ellesse tops. 

There’s interesting contributions from female casuals such as Helen Thomas from the Cardiff Soul Crew and Bev Thompson from Leicester Baby squad, as well as Asian Riaz Khan and the “Lacoste Lefties” from the Cardiff Soul Crew.

Quite a few (designer) anoraks are on display too. From the bloke who’s got 400 Adidas trainers round his gaff, to Neil Primett owner of 80s Casual Classics with his endless racks of Fila tops.

Casuals is an excellent social document of a time when football was in a different pre-Sky/Premier League age. 

Could the Casuals return? Well, my crew in the East Stand favours Dukla Prague away shirts (Matt), Somerset Maugham jackets and cigars (Fraser), AC/DC denim jackets (Nigel) and Berghaus fleeces, Craghopper trousers and DMs (me), though strangely no young Scallies have started to imitate us. Give it time though, and they’ll realise we’re style icons.

Festive mugging

West Ham 1 Burnley 2

There’s much excitement in Ken’s Café: Matt has been on a mini-break to Aylesbury that didn’t involve going to a football match while Nigel has met Ian Gillan of Deep Purple, along with CQ dressed in purple (a Strange Kind of Woman?). He’s not looked so excited since he bought Made in Japan on vinyl. Though he does admit it might be a Black Night if West Ham lose.

Worryingly though, Nigel is so elated by his Purple encounter that he has decided to embrace positivity with West Ham too. Having declared that we’d beat Bristol City by “a cricket score” he announces, “soon the floodgates will open”. Matt, Fraser and myself know that you should never interfere with West Ham’s karma in such fashion; always assume we are going to lose.

Sure enough we dominate the first half but Taylor heads over and Nolan prods wide when surely he should score. Green has not had a shot to save. Cole is having a good game, bringing other players into the game with his knock downs and making some good runs, but you do wonder if we should have two up front at home.

Finally we make the breakthrough when Cole nods on Green's goal kick and Nolan cleverly lobs the keeper after 52 minutes. We take Taylor off for Piquionne. Nigel says it proves us Jeremiahs wrong.

SNATCHING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY

Only five minutes later Burnley's Junior Stanislas (sold by Big Sam) pings over a routine cross and McCann rises above Faye and heads home with their first effort on target.

We batter the Burnley goal and completely dominate midfield. It’s actually one of our better home performances of the season. Collison hits the post and Piquionne makes a fine run but releases the ball at the wrong moment.

Green makes a fine stop from a long distance Burnley effort. Nigel says we'll score soon and that as Southampton are losing "we'll go top if we win". After 75 minutes Burnley get their first corner. Sam Vokes rises above Nolan to score with a powerful header. It’s a complete mugging.

West Ham continue to press with Carew, Cole and Piquionne up front and Faubert’s woeful header wide summing up our afternoon. Every cross seems to land on a Burnley head and we look tired and demoralised. Nigel's floodgates remain barred and triple-locked by Banham. Piquionne has a goal bound shot stopped by a defender's face and Cole shoots narrowly wide.

“There’s only one person to blame and that’s Nigel,” exclaims Matt, although Nigel feebly tries to argue that the players and manager might come into it also.

We’ve been desperately unlucky, but have been punished for bad defending and poor finishing and Nigel’s Deep Purple-inspired over-confidence.

We’ve been undone by Burnley’s Machine Head. And there could be Smoke on the Water when Nigel burns his lucky West Ham baseball cap by the Thames.

Hayden Foxe where are you?

In yesterday's Evening Standard Sam Allardyce reveals that it's the players' Christmas party after today's game. We have a glorious tradition of misbehaviour at these events, dating back to Hayden Foxe weeing in a plant pot in 2001 and Trevor Sinclair getting into a fracas with a car in Romford in 'Arry's time.

Still, Big Sam, and Davids Sullivan and Gold will all be attending, presumably on the principle that if the headmaster's around the players will behave. Kevin Nolan is organising the bash, and as Andy Carroll's former landlord (his car got burned out while Carroll was lodger) you have to hope he knows how to deal with any miscreants.

Though if they all go on to Sugar Hut afterwards, who knows what might happen...