Kevin Nolan's move from Newcastle to West Ham is a strange one, does he lack ambition? Or is he doing it to help out an old friend?
This week saw Kevin Nolan move from Newcastle United to West Ham United in a three million pound transfer, this is great business for West Ham, I’m sure many of their fans will be delighted, but I’m pretty sure they’ll be just as confused as every other football fan in the country is as to why Nolan wanted the transfer. Kevin Nolan had helped Newcastle through the toughest stage of their recent history, the club were relegated to the Championship, they were in financial turmoil, there was a real possibility that the club could go bust and they had a chairman that nobody liked. Yet Kevin Nolan stuck with Newcastle and managed to help them get promoted, and then comfortably help Newcastle stay in the Premier League the following season, finishing as their top goal scorer with 12 goals from midfield.
I’ll start with the positives, from West Ham’s and Sam Allardyce’s point of view, it’s a great signing. Many, including myself, were tipping West Ham for a rotten season in the Championship next year, but signings like this show that they’re not going down without a fight. I believe the signing of Kevin Nolan will help to keep some players who were thinking of leaving in this summer’s transfer window, I still think the likes of Parker and Ba will leave, but others who might not be wanted by the bigger Premier League clubs might feel that this signing could be a turning point for the east London club and stay. Good luck to West Ham, I’ve always been an admirer, but now onto the main issue, why did Nolan sign for a club in decline, in the prime of his career?
Kevin Nolan is still only 28, most central midfielders are coming into their prime at this point in their career and look to play at the highest level possible, this is the main reason why Scott Parker wants to leave West Ham. At this point in his career it seems strange that Kevin Nolan, who is still uncapped by England, appears to have no desire to compete at the top level of English football. I’ve always admired Nolan and feel he deserved to be in the England squad back in his days as a Bolton Wanderers player, and after his performances for Newcastle this season, I strongly believe he should be either in or on the brink of the England set up now.
When it comes down to it, I just think that Kevin Nolan lacks the ambition to compete at the top level, I can understand why he wants to leave Newcastle, the possible reasons he could give are endless. The sacking of Chris Hughton in the middle of this season was completely unnecessary, the man had dragged Newcastle back to the Premier League with little backing from the chairman and the fans to begin with. He had also got Newcastle into a comfortable mid-table position, but this wasn’t good enough for Mike Ashley, so he sacked him. It’s almost as if everything was going too well for Newcastle, so Mike Ashley felt the need to step in just to mess things up a little bit.
As for other reasons Nolan may want to leave, Newcastle announced recently that they wouldn’t be renewing Joey Barton’s contract, one of their outstanding players this season, he created more goals than any other player this year for Newcastle with nine assists. He may not see eye to eye with Alan Pardew, and he may have had enough of the bumbling chairman. He may also be disappointed at the sale of Andy Carroll, he may believe that the club has no ambition to use the funds from that transfer to try and sign a top class forward to replace him.
These would all be fairly acceptable reasons for wanting to move clubs, but Nolan could probably walk into twelve or thirteen of the Premier League’s teams, so why move to a team that has just been relegated, and a team that looks as though they’re in even more trouble with Gold and Sullivan as their chairmen as Newcastle were with Mike Ashley in charge? Like I mentioned earlier, the only thing I can think of is that he has a lack of ambition, at 28 his talent is going to be wasted in the Championship, and he’s done himself more harm than good if he ever wants to represent his country, with the Euro 2012 championship coming up next summer, one more storming year for Newcastle could have catapulted him into England’s 23 man squad.
The only reason I can think of for Nolan’s move is his want to be able to work with Sam Allardyce again, Allardyce took him under his wing as a young lad at Bolton and basically turned him into the player he is today. Maybe he saw this as a last chance to work with the man that gave him his first chance, maybe Nolan feels that he owes Allardyce, and wants to help his old manager bring West Ham back into the Premier League. If this is the case, I suppose it’s quite a nice thing Kevin Nolan’s doing, especially when there’s so much greed in football these days, players often looking out for themselves and nobody else. But I think Nolan is missing a trick, he’s a very talented player and I’m disappointed that he won’t be playing in the Premier League next season. Personally, I hope he gets West Ham promoted, if he fails it might be hard for other top teams to consider signing him, he had it fairly good at Newcastle, more or less having a team built around him. If this doesn’t make a player happy, other clubs may not wish to take the risk on him, not knowing when he might unexpectedly jump ship again.
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