Addicks Get Hammered

Well at least I've had a better 24 hours than Watford supporting Labour Blogger Kerron Cross. Click HERE to read about his very trying train journey back from seeing his team lose at Everton. By all accounts they were rather hard done by. I'll be going to Vicarage Road on Tuesday to see how they cope with West Ham. Which brings me neatly onto the game at Upton Park yesterday. For those who are bored by my football talk, look away now.

Last season West Ham had best record of any premier League team for coming from behind (Matron!). So when we went 1-0 down to Charlton, for some reason I just knew that we would still win. I just knew. Can't explain it, I just knew. When Traore got sent off we were already dominating the game with Lee Bowyer in superb form down the right. Apparently we are still looking to sign a right sided attacking player. When we have Bowyer and Benayoun in this sort of form, I think I'd save the money. The great thing about this Hammers team is that we have top class cover in every position. I don't think I can ever recall that being the case before. We've got 5 top class strikers (Harewood, Cole, Zamora, Ashton, Sheringham), two excellent left wingers (Etherington, Reid), two excellent right wingers (Bowyer, Benayoun), a clutch of central midfielders (Mullins, Reo-Coker, Noble, Dailly) and too many defenders to mention. Apart from one. Yesterday Ghanaian International John Paintsil came on for the whole of the second half and was stunning. He's certainly an attacking right back and his precision passes along the ground through to Harewood were fantastic. We got him for less than a million. With Konchesky on the left - and almost playing wing-back in a 442! - playing out of his skin and punting crosses in for fun, this will always be a team that scores goals. Bizarrely we scored three goals yesterday without either of the strikers playing particularly well. Zamora scored two but didn't so a lot else. And for Carlton Cole to come on and score within 20 seconds will have given him the lift he needed and injected the whole squad with a buzz. Alan Pardew must be a very happy man today, and he has every right to be. If we perform to that level for the rest of the season it's going to be a very enjoyable one.

An amazing 142 teams have entered my Fantasy League. I'll post the leaders after the Chelsea match later on.