Unintentional Comedy

Free Matthew Upson!

Premier League - 'No rush' over Upson contract - Yahoo! Eurosport

This is perhaps the most unintentionally hilarious article of the season to date.

West Ham co-owner David Gold is not panicking about the prospect of losing Matthew Upson on a free transfer and would be happy to wait until the end of the season for the England defender to commit his future to the club.

I wouldn't imagine they're too worried. Upson has been awful and is the "leader" of an awful defence.

Upson is unlikely to put pen to paper on his new deal until West Ham's Barclays Premier League status looks more secure given that he will need to be playing top-flight football to make England's Euro 2012 squad.

The irony here is that said status won't be secure despite, or because of, his "best" efforts. As for Euro 2012, he'll be 33 years old with a history of serious injury. Does anyone really think he'll be in line for place in the squad? His contemporaries include the incumbents Terry and Ferdinand. And England are producing potential center halves at quite a clip these days - Turner and Bramble (yes, I said it!) at Sunderland; Shawcross at Stoke; Cahill at Bolton; Smalling at Manchester United; Richards; Rodwell; etc...

Losing Upson would be a big blow to the Londoners, who have built their defence around the centre-half since he arrived from Birmingham in a £6million deal in January 2007.

14 goals allowed this season, only one better than league worst Blackpool. Big blow, indeed.

"Matthew is always welcome to come to me and talk about it. The fact that we're bottom of the league makes it a bit difficult but it's no rush for neither him nor us."

Translation: "I won't laugh him out of my office, but really, he's not going to be here next season."