Back in the mists things looked bright for West Ham. Coming off of one of their most successful seasons in years the Hammers were predicted great things; playing in Europe, another season near the top of the Premiership, maybe even a decent cup run. Plus, the arrival of two of Argentina's best young players all wrapped up in rumours of a mega-money takeover, a host of stars arriving to play in the grand and new Olympic stadium with it's 80 000 capacity. Aah, happy days.

Since then the club has languished in the very low parts of the league, quickly dismissed from Europe, disasters in the cups, sacked the manager, been taken over by a different person and discovered that the big new stadium will be small and pokey if they're even allowed to move there. Now that's more like the West Ham we know and love.

Going back to those heady days of summer I made a prediction about the Argentian players. Tevez would be the hero but Mascherano would be the one to watch; a solid anchor for the club. Well Mascherano has barely played for the club and managed to concinvce FIFA they should make an exception to the rules and let him leave. So he's off to Liverpool and it looks like I was a little bit wrong about that whole thing.

Actually, I'm going to defend my honour and suggest the jury is still out. I mean, Liverpool want the guy - I won't say they've never had a bad player but they also don't have many complete lemons. Mascherano didn't make an impact at West Ham for some reason, and not playing certainly didn't help him in that respect. Tevez took a while to settle but the club was weaker up front so he got more of a chance to play, Mascherano had to fight for his spot right from the start and it looks like he got disheartened before he was really ready to play. When Curbishly arrived I thought Mascherano might pick up heart and battle back into the squad but fot whatever reason he didn't.

The irony of his departure is that Liverpool actually have a somewhat similar style to West Ham. If Mascherano simply didn't fit into the West Ham game then he may well struggle in the future too. If the move boosts his confidence and he starts playing in the first team I still think Mascherano will make a big impact, but what went wrong?