Harewood signs up for five more years

Marlon Harewood has signed a new five-year contract with West Ham.

The 26-year-old striker was the Hammers’ leading scorer as they won promotion to the Barclays Premiership last season.

He has put pen to paper on a new deal just days after helping West Ham open their Premiership campaign with a 3-1 victory over Blackburn at Upton Park.

Harewood was praised by manager Alan Pardew for his performance in the Upton Park match and the frontman has high hopes for West Ham in the Premiership.

“The atmosphere and spirit within the squad is fantastic at the moment and I’m proud to be a part of the team. I’m delighted to have signed a new contract with the club,” Harewood told the club’s official website, www.whufc.com.

“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time at the club so far and winning promotion last season was without doubt one of the best moments of my career. Hopefully, we can look forward to more success like that in the future.

“We got off to a great start with the result against Blackburn on Saturday and it’s given us a lot of confidence going into the trip to Newcastle. It’s a great starting point for us to build on this season.”

Pardew described Harewood’s performance against Blackburn “one of his most complete performances in the Premier League”.

The former Nottingham Forest striker, who arrived at Upton Park for £500,000 in 2003, missed a couple of chances but worked off Teddy Sheringham to hassle the opposing defence.

Blackburn manager Mark Hughes admitted afterwards that Harewood and Sheringham “caused us problems all day long and we never got to grips with it”.

Nevertheless, Pardew is still looking for reinforcements up front. He has three front-line strikers in Harewood, Sheringham and Bobby Zamora but wants a fourth goalscorer.

He has missed out on Peter Crouch, Milan Baros and Emanuel Adebayor and talks with Middlesbrough striker Joseph Desire-Job broke down at the weekend.

Pardew wants added competition to bring the best out of his current strikeforce.

“That is what the players want, they want competition. Teddy has had it all his career. Marlon has had a bit of a free run at this place for a little while and now he might get some serious competition,” Pardew said last week.