Pardew bemoans Hammers cash woes

West Ham manager Alan Pardew has revealed that the club’s financial problems had proved far worse than he had first believed.

After a trying season, Pardew is on the brink of guiding the Hammers into the Premiership. Victory over Preston in tomorrow’s Championship play-off final would earn the east London club a place in the top flight for 2005/06.

An estimated €45m debt means that a win at the Millennium Stadium is paramount – and Pardew admitted he had been surprised by the off-the-field difficulties of the club for whom he left Reading under bitter circumstances in late 2003.

“When I then found that the West Ham job was available to me I understood some of the problems,” Pardew said.

“But of course the problems can never quite be explained and the next month it changes and something else comes in.

“It deteriorated from that original story for sure but I’m paid a good salary to manage this club. I have to manage whatever scenario I have.”

Pardew also believes West Ham are suffering as a result of their relatively prudent financial management since they were relegated from the Premiership in 2003.

Joe Cole was sold to Chelsea that summer, and his fellow internationals Jermain Defoe and Michael Carrick have since departed for Tottenham.

Their sales were a knock-on effect of relegation – but Pardew hinted that the club’s supporters do not comprehend that such transactions were necessary.

He also took a swipe at Leeds, who dropped out of the Premiership in 2004 and fell into administration due to serious financial mismanagement at Elland Road.

“I look at Leeds for example and there seems to be a much more positive feeling there from the fans towards the team and towards the club since they came out of administration [than there is here].

“It might be because they went into administration and they had hit the bottom whereas we have tried to stay out of it.

“In some ways we haven’t had that kind of good feeling, so [to see the reaction at Leeds has] been hard to stomach.

“We tried to manage relegation the best we could.”

For long periods of the season, it appeared as though West Ham would not reach the play-offs, so poor were their performances in some matches.

But a strong late-season run – the two-leg play-off win over Ipswich means they have lost only one of their last 12 matches going into the final – enabled Pardew’s men to scrape into sixth spot.

And Pardew gives much of the credit for that surge to young centre-backs Anton Ferdinand and Elliott Ward, who were paired for the first time against Crewe on March 15 and have played together ever since.

“Other factors contributed to our run, but the main factors were those two,” Pardew insisted.

“We looked at the run of games before we played Crewe and I honestly felt that maybe it was going to be difficult for us.

“Malky Mackay had a groin injury, and Christian Dailly had been out for virtually the whole season.

“But along came Elliott Ward and in some ways the pairing of him and Anton saved our season.”