Well, he was a 'dead man walking' in managerial terms, but the timing of Manuel Pellegrini's sacking as West Ham manager will raise a few eyebrows, not least because one of the prime candidates to take over at the London Stadium is the manager of the club's next opponents, Bournemouth, who themselves are deep in a relegation battle!
West Ham: Fabianski, Fredericks, Balbuena, Diop, Masuaku, Rice, Sanchez, Fornals, Anderson, Lanzini, Haller. Subs: Jimenez, Reid, Zabaleta, Snodgrass, Noble, Ajeti, Antonio.
Leicester: Schmeichel, Justin, Morgan, Evans, Fuchs, Albrighton, Choudhury, Mendy, Gray, Perez, Iheanacho. Subs: Ward, Chilwell, Soyuncu, Tielemans, Maddison, Barnes, Ndidi.
Crystal Palace: Guaita, Kelly, Tomkins, Sakho, Van Aanholt, Kouyate, Milivojevic, McArthur, Meyer, Ayew, Zaha. Subs: Hennessey, Wickham, McCarthy, Camarasa, Woods, Pierrick, Riedewald.
West Ham: Roberto, Zabaleta, Balbuena, Ogbonna, Cresswell, Snodgrass, Noble, Rice, Fornals, Antonio, Haller. Subs: Anang, Anderson, Lanzini, Sanchez, Diop, Masuaku, Ajeti.
Barclays Premier League Footballers have a predilection for buying expensive sports cars, and the players at West Ham are no exceptions, but what is perhaps relevant is that Hammers players tend to crash their's more than others!
Michail Antonio has just joined Diafra Sakho and Dimitri Payet in the 'crash a Lamborghini club', fortunately the 'beast' was neither at fault nor rendered incapable at the time of the crash and has been able to join up with the rest of the squad for the crucial Boxing Day match against London rivals Crystal Palace.
Ahead of the Boxing day clash with fellow Londoners Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park supporters have been expressing genuine concern that neither Lukasz Fabianski nor David Martin will be fit for what is the first of two games in 48 Hours.
The goalkeeping situation is alarming, but the elephant in the room is going to be at right back, where whoever plays will be up against Wilfred Zaha, and irrespective of what you think about the player, on his day he can destroy teams, especially those who don't have a 'spring heeled' runner to keep pace with him.
Goalkeepers are a strange breed, in a way they are much akin to drummers, desperate and disparate souls, after all, who would willingly play an instrument that takes a pernicious Addison Lee 'men in black' delivery vehicle a lot of time, and a whole lot of money to deliver them to their venue?
Football genius is a term that has been ritually over used, as has the term legend, with most of those named actually being leg ends! However in the case of martin Peters such eulogies don't even get close.
There are many strange managerial decisions taken by football managers that leave fans dumbfounded by their actions, only for the fans to be proved mistaken in questioning the wisdom of a professional who is highly paid to make those choices, however, West Ham United's manager Manuel Pellegrini proves that is not always the case.
Maybe it is because it is Panto season, but for some reason there has been a media groundswell as to whether Roberto JIminez Gago will be at West Ham by the time the transfer window closes at the end of January. The Hapless Hammers '2nd' choice keeper has had an inordinate amount of criticism dumped on him for his 'terrible' stint between the sticks that saw the club go from being Champions League contenders, to being in the battle to avoid the Championship!
Back in the day when we relaunched the Org, James Mad Hammer and I wanted wanted to have 21st century schizoid man to sound off as soon as you logged in, unfortunately dear old Bob Fripp, a distant colleague is fiercely protective over the rights to the track and we were unable to use it, however even dear old Bob won't mind us paraphrasing some of the lyrics*.