Marko Arnautovic- money grabber or just a classic piece of China.

Marko Arnautovic - money grabber or just a classic piece of China.


For those of us with claret and blue sensibilities this is normally the point when West Ham stumble and stagger painstakingly towards the finishing line of a Premier League season. It used to be the case that the East London club would always come down with the Christmas decorations, plummeting down the division with that customary flop on their faces that would somehow characterise the club's fortunes during the second half of the season.

This season though, with the notable exception of their first four games of this season when it all looked very bleak and humiliating for West Ham, new West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini has finally established the club on a firm footing. The Chilean, a dour and businesslike man who looks at times as if he hasn't slept for ages, takes the Hammers to the south coast where Bournemouth, in the corresponding game at the Vitality Stadium last season, engaged in a remarkable 3-3 draw with  West Ham over the Christmas holidays.

At the beginning of the season, when West Ham were still finding their bearings, Bournemouth beat West Ham 2-1 at a time when most of West Ham's most passionate fans were still sunbathing in the late summer heat and probably wishing they hadn't bothered to turn up in the first place.

 But after a superb smash and grab 3-1 win at Everton, a hard fought goal-less draw at home to Chelsea and a classical 3-1 victory at home to Manchester United, West Ham have now fully recovered  from their early season drowsy torpor and now find themselves at a much higher altitude, a ninth position which would have been regarded as barely possible back in September. It is the kind of territory where men in claret and blue fear to tread at their peril but still believe they can conquer.

Sadly though, the man who has single handedly become the club's new pin up boy and worshipped all over East London has now turned his back on the club quite abruptly and will never ever be welcomed back beyond the London Stadium's hallowed portals. In fact he may well be accused of treason, taken to the Tower of London and never spoken to again. He'll be forcefully driven out of Stratford and, quite possibly, be locked inside the Westfield shopping centre.

His name is Marko Arnautovic and this is the man who has consistently proved to be one of the best goal scorers for many a season. But now Arnautovic has decided that the grass on the other side of the fence is much greener and wants to leave for the club for the mystical Far East. In the last week or so we've been reliably informed that Arnautovic's brother has taken it upon himself to dangle a huge financial carrot in front of the Austrian international's face in an effort to persuade him that his immediate future lies in Chinese football. Lest we forget Arnautovic is desperate to win trophies in China which has to be the ultimate ambition of any player. You simply couldn't make it up.

Now there are those within the footballing fraternity who are convinced that Arnautovic has just lost the plot, that the man has lost his marbles and is utterly potty. The thought occurs to you that the man from Austria is just the latest in another disturbing list of money grabbing mercenaries who just want to retire with a mammoth amount of money in their bank account without the slightest consideration of the adoring fans he might have left behind.

A couple of seasons ago most West Ham fans must have thought their world had come to an end when French playmaker Dimitri Payet got all restless and agitated after a season and a half at the club. Payet insisted that it had nothing to do with the club more a case of settling his family down in London which never really worked out for him. So the Frenchman reluctantly returned to his homeland and all was forgotten.

Now though English football's recent and alarming tendency to allow its finest players to jump onto the Chinese and American gravy train is beginning to leave most football fans growling with discontent. With the likes of Wayne Rooney now feathering his pre- retirement nest with a fistful of dollars it's hardly surprising that the vast majority of hard core supporters are beginning to feel that nobody likes their club at all.

We all know of course that loyalty is almost a swear word, football's most ghastly of all profanities, something that went out of fashion with trams and trolleybuses, post war rationing and Johnny Haynes boots. The fact is that binding, five year footballing contracts have almost become yesterday's fish and chip paper, a farcical irrelevance that just looks very cheap and meaningless to the millions of fans who just want to see their team do fantastically well regardless of who's in their team.

But now in an age where beards and tattoos have become very much de rigueur and this year's fashion statement, today's generation of footballers will perhaps take a moment to think about what exactly it is that prompts them to leave a club where their inherent connection to their team counts for nothing. In the case of Arnautovic the kissing of the badge and the so called dedication to the cause can only be regarded as a futile gesture.

You're reminded of a certain Sir Trevor Brooking, whose lifelong relationship with West Ham has to be seen as a salutary example to the rest of the footballing world of just what it means to remain with your boyhood club through thick and thin. Brooking, who joined the club as a youngster and lived within cheering distance of Upton Park, can only hope that one day such warm hearted affinity to one club for their entire career can once again be richly demonstrated.

And yet Marko Arnautovic continues to bide his time on the sidelines, kicking his heels frustratingly hoping against hope that the good fairy can arrive in time to spirit the Austrian away to some remote corner of the Orient where all that glisters is the currency of the yuan. It is though one of the more baffling of footballing transfers- or seemingly inevitable transfers in recent seasons.

Here we have on the one hand one of the game's most natural goal scorers with a hunger for goals, a bite and aggression to his game that must be the envy of the Premier League and still he is attracted to the land of rice and chop suey. Still, it is important to wish the former Stoke City striker well in his genuine pursuit of League titles, Champions League glory and much adoration from the whole of Chinese football. Maybe he might stop to think of Sir Trevor Brooking just for a minute or two. It does seem highly unlikely.