Hammer time for Kev

Confirmation then, that Kevin Nolan has been reunited with Fat Sam and signed for West Ham.

For me, the exasperating part of this is that we've flogged off a player who netted 12 goals for us from midfield last year and was reportedly a strong positive influence off the field as well as on. One who, despite a complete lack of pace, was able to do sterling work in the middle of the park for us and who was one of the reasons why the ship remained steady after the sacking of Hughton and sale of Rocky.

However, this is football and it looks as though the club were unwilling to offer the long term contract which a player approaching his 30s understandably wanted. Equally, ignoring everything else, I can roughly understand why the club might not want to invest heavily in the wages of a player whose career may slowly start to go down hill before too long (although to be fair, it's not like his he has a turn of pace to lose).

Alan Pardew (and the club) have consistently talked a good game on transfers this summer, and for once have acted early to bring in Yohan Cabaye, rather than wait until late July or August before signing anyone, which is encouraging.

Obviously, the time to judge our transfer policy this summer is after the start of the new season.  However, the loss of Nolan, and ASBO's increasingly frustrated tweets suggest he won't be far behind, together with Smith and in all probability Enrique, risks destabilising the core of players around which our team spirit was built. Failure to maintain that "team" mentality risks being far more costly than the loss of any one player.

Nolan may have done very little to keep us up after he was signed by JFK, but he did an awful lot to get us back up and keep us there last year, for which we remain grateful. He goes with our best wishes and sure of a warm reception should Fat Sam manage to guide his bunch of Hammers back to the Premier League (something his new manager certainly won't enjoy).