Bouncing back

Perched atop the league and poised for a return to the top flight at the first time of asking, consistency on the pitch, sensible spending in the transfer window, a calm and assured figure sipping from what is supposedly a poisoned chalice with no ill effects - it's fair to say we're currently not answering to last season's description of "crisis club".

But when West Ham's David Sullivan - who, with fellow new owner David Gold, appears to be going through a Jabba-esque experience of discovering the true horror of the club's finances - was grasping for a club to compare the Hammers to, it was us he picked: "It'll be Armageddon if we go down. It'll be worse than what's gone on at Newcastle." Surely, given Sullivan's revelations about the club's excesses and overreaching, Portsmouth would have been a much better and more contemporary comparison? Perhaps it just goes to show that we haven't got rid of the stigma just yet.

Of course, two of the most prominent examples of excess at Upton Park are the salaries being paid to Scott Parker and Kieron Dyer, both formerly of this parish. While Parker often does enough to suggest he merits a decent wage (as he did on Tyneside), the Little Waster has cost his current employers as much as he did us and given even less in return. Good thing we didn't have him as well as Geremi to shift off the wage bill in January, eh?