Hammed

To borrow a common and terribly overused phrase - you can take a club out of the Championship but you can't take the Championship out of the club.

West Ham crashed out of Europe last night, with bionic duo Carlos Teves and Javier Mascherano in tow against, Palermo, a side who can only count Aussie Mark Bresciano as probably the most recognizable name in their squad. In other words - there's no more excuses.

The impact of the Argentinian duo has been severely mis-managed by West Ham. There hasn't been any explosive performances from Tevez, who some would rank as perhaps one of the finest players on the globe today. How explosive can you get when you are playing off someone like Carlton Cole?

Even after producing sparkling gems such as Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole, Michael Carrick and of course, Frank Lampard over the years, most of these players achieved their max potential elsewhere. Now with Tevez and Mascherano, it's like giving the latest O2 PDA/phone to your technologically spastic dad.

It's better for West Ham to purchase like-minded Championship-style working class players who can band and huddle together to grind out a teeth-grazing survival campaign. Now Alan Pardew would be hard-pressed to play the duo even though they appear to not be delivering the goods. Just like how you can't just leave a RM3000 PDA at home even if it's a pain to learn how use it.

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