West Ham United

London Mayor Sadiq Khan today has ordered an investigation into the £50m cost increase for converting West Ham Uniteds new London Stadium.

A total of 3 people were surprised when Khan announced that former mayor Boris Johnson quoted a figure of £272m but the figure has risen to £323m, it turns out Britain’s own special needs golden retriever isn’t the best at maths.

Boris was quoted as saying “Well, now hold on one jolly bloody minute. I never said anything about £272m, and if I did it was a bloody estimation, everybody knows its not an official figure until its paraded round the country on the side of a bus, and even then we can bloody deny it, now bugger off! Mother is making me some fish fingers and custard”

One stadium expert, Paul Fletcher, has said the ground should be knocked down and then rebuilt.  However he did used to play for Burnley, so being knocked down is probably just a statement used so many times its now ingrained into his psyche.

Fletcher helped in the construction of such picturesque and loved stadiums as Bolton’s Reebok Stadium, Coventry City’s Ricoh Stadium and Huddersfield’s John Smiths Stadium.  When asked what he would have done differently with the London Stadium Fletcher quoted thusly, “It has got to be about the fans you know, they have to be the one consistent thing that’s consistently thought about, with some real consistency. The fans hate the name of the “London Stadium”, what I propose is we build a new stadium with a bigger and better name.”  He then glanced down into his phone circled through a few emails and came back with “The Samsung Stadium! All fans love big companies naming their stadiums”

One thing that however must be taken with a degree of seriousness is the point that the stadium has been marred by the fact it has become less a football stadium at times and more a Roman Coliseum, with some disgraceful fan clashes. The vice chair-woman of West Ham has said that any fans being involved in violence will be banned from the ground as the club announced its new five point security plan, with one of the points being giving the stewards cameras!  If this is the way that security and law enforcement is going it wont be long until we are stopping sentencing people to prison, and starting sentencing them to YouTube.

One of the most surprising statements of the five point plan was the fact that there would be “no tolerance” banning orders, not just for violence but for offensive and abusive language.  It seems an odd business plan that in a time where we just found out your stadium cost way more money than it should have, you’re going to ban every single stadium goer. Lets face it telling West Ham fans they cant swear is like telling Slaven Billic he has to win two games in a row, its just never going to happen.

In other news, Manchester City Pepped Barcelona (see what I did there) 3-1, with every City fan going absolutely mental, claiming Pep Guardiola as the new Jesus and kind of ignoring the spanking they got given at the Camp Nou, Still, it keeps them happy.

The BBC reported that Celtic’s hopes for progression were still alive after clumsily stumbling to a draw against “that German team.” The fact that they would need a win against Manchester City and Barcelona says to me that their hopes of staying in Europe are less alive, and more on life support in a hospital that has no electricity.

In a story that isn’t Premier League but still felt worthy of sharing, ex-Werder Bremen goalkeeper Tim Wiese is making his debut for the WWE this week.  That’s right, a wrestling goalkeeper!  I for one would love to see him come back to football and add “Robot Wars” rules so that anyone coming into the goalkeeper’s area was allowed to be Suplexed.