Skipper out to silence Pardew

FIRED-Up Blues skipper Jim Magilton is looking to silence the 'automatic gums' of Hammers manager Alan Pardew tomorrow, writes Derek Davis.

The garrulous Irishman believes Pardew has been spouting a lot of hot air about West Ham belonging in the Premiership since taking over at Upton Park almost a year ago.

Although the Hammers lost the likes of Joe Cole, Glen Johnson and Michael Carrick to the Premiership, Pardew has rebuilt the team with eight new signings, four arriving in the past fortnight.

Recent recruits Malky Mackay, Callum Davenport, Chris Powell, Teddy Sheringham and Sergei Rebrov could all be involved against Town tomorrow.

Magilton believes he is piling too much pressure on his new replacements and added: "Nobody wants to see quality players go out the door, but they had to do it for financial reasons, just as we did.

"He is making noises saying that this is his side now, meaning he has no excuses.

"This is the team he built and one he feels can go on and win the Championship.

"We will have to wait and see. I think Alan Pardew makes a lot of noise.

"He felt his side should have gone up last year, but for me Crystal Palace deservedly went up, so a lot of hot air comes out from him.

"Pardew has made a lot of bold predictions and in this game I don't believe you can afford to do that.

"Going into a club like West Ham, with the players he had, he didn't need to make those statements. All he had to do was go and win football matches.

"He didn't make those sort of comments when he was at Reading. People appreciated what he did there and the side he built.

"But, and no disrespect to Reading, he went to a bigger club with higher expectations and suddenly he found his voice and developed automatic gums.

"That said, he runs that football club and I'm not interested in what he has to say."

Former Town coach Paul Goddard was released from the West Ham staff and Magilton feels Pardew made another error in showing Kevin Horlock the door.

He said: "Kevin was West Ham's loss and our gain. Football is about opinion and Alan Pardew's opinion was that Kevin was not right for West Ham – but he is certainly right for us."

Magilton, who played a part in Town's superb second goal at Stoke City, is anxious to put the defeat at the Britannia Stadium behind them.

It was a long, painful coach journey home from Stoke with plenty of time to contemplate the defeat and Magilton reflected: "In hindsight we didn't play badly but did give away three silly goals.

"That is something we had hoped we had eradicated from our game. Hopefully it was a one-off because defensively we have looked a lot more solid this season.

"We will play better and possibly lose games and play worse and win games, so it is swings and roundabouts. But the start we made to the season has given us the belief and confidence that we can do well this season.

"It was a setback at Stoke but there is no better game than the one at West Ham to bounce back.

"Our confidence is still pretty high and I'm not going there fearing anyone or anything.

"It is a terrific place to go and play with a great atmosphere."

Magilton hopes the atmosphere will be cranked up and Pardew will be instructing the ball boys to keep the game flowing, just as he did in May.

He said: "The problem for us away from home is the slow tempo. The quicker it is, the better we play.

"This is a different scenario to last year's play-off game when they were 1-0 down and they wanted to get at us early with the crowd on their side.

"If Darren (Bent) had scored with that early chance it would have been a completely different story. It would have dampened the atmosphere and deflated them, but that didn't happen.

"If they try to play with the same high tempo it will actually suit us."

Town have no injury problems ahead of the trip to the Boleyn Ground, with Horlock's knee injury the only concern – but he was still involved in training yesterday.