|
First up is Trevor Sinclair. This is a fantastic piece of news. Firstly, Hammers fans have known for a while how good Trevor is, and how much of a difference he can make to a side. However, as of this summer, the whole world knows about our Tricky Trev, after his fantastic performance in Japan and Korea.
Also taking into consideration how unsettled he was last season, it shows how far West Ham have come in the past 15 months since Glenn was appointed manager. Trevor was reluctant to continue his career at the Hammers, after he raised the perfectly valid point of West Ham selling their best youth players, with Rio and Lampard going. However, following Glenn's summer transfer dealings, he has been convinced that West Ham is the place for him.
Steve Lomas was the club captain before injury prevented him from playing consistently for over a year. In that time Paolo di Canio was installed as the regular captain. And it seemed that Steve was one of the players destined for the scrap heap this summer, before he returned midway through the latter half of the season, and made a huge difference.
He was scoring goals - something that was lacking from his game previously, and he brought some steel to the midfield. A midfield general that will have to fight with Edouard Cisse for his place. But competition for places can only be a positive thing.
Ian Pearce is one of my favourite West Ham players. A genuinely likeable bloke, and one that never seems to give up. He scored an excellent header against Man City in Harry's last season - just after returning from injury, and then scored a rocket of a goal against TottScum just after returning last season.
If he can avoid injury, Ian is another rock in defence for West Ham, like Tomas Repka. With Breen and Dailly also at the club, competition for the centre-back spot is hotting up. More excellent news here.
Jermain Defoe has also been offered a new contract, and will probably be signing it imminently, whilst Anton Ferdinand is another player that is about to put pen to paper. Glenn assures us that other young players such as Cole and Carrick are going to have their contracts extended too.
He told the club's site: "The good thing at the football club is that although we are not able to spend transfer money on players at this present time, no one is putting me under any pressure whatsoever to sell any of the players, particularly those young players such as Cole, Carrick, and Defoe.
"We want to build a team around players like that, and now we have secured players like Lomas, Pearce, and Sinclair on longer contracts we want to tie up the three young boys on even longer contracts - even though they are on lengthy deals now.
"I look at those three particularly at 19, 20, and 21, and each season now we should be expecting an even better season from them than the last. They are going to improve every year, and it is good that the club is ambitious enough to want to secure these young players on the longest possible terms that we can, so we keep them."