Soccer: It's not over for Zola

West Ham are in trouble and so are most of the Spurs team after an illicit Christmas party. Jason Burt and Sam Wallace report on two very different festive seasons facing two famous London football clubs.

West Ham United have reassured Gianfranco Zola and Steve Clarke that they have the full support of the club.

A meeting was held with chief executive Scott Duxbury in the wake of Tuesday's defeat away to Bolton Wanderers which left West Ham in the bottom three on the Premiership ladder.

The three-hour meeting is understood to have been extremely positive, and far from a 'vote of confidence' affair. Intriguingly, the pair put forward an analysis of the matches, which revealed that nine points had been lost through individual errors such as Robert Green's blunder at Bolton.

Indeed, if West Ham were to beat Chelsea tonight - a big if, given their form - they would be one point better off than they were at this point last season, with matches against other relegation strugglers to come in the next few weeks.

Zola and Clarke, who maintain their squad is technically better than last season, even if the balance is not right, are hopeful that funds will be made available to strengthen in the January transfer window. For this to happen West Ham will have to sell.

Chairman Andrew Bernhardt, privately furious at the way the club is being portrayed as in a financial crisis, has promised that all funds raised in the transfer market will be reinvested directly.

There is no pressure to sell to meet the club's financial commitments, while the granting of a nine-month extension to the debt moratorium for Straumur, the bank which owns 70 per cent of West Ham's parent company, CB Holdings, has helped.

The obvious candidate to go would be defender Matthew Upson, 30, who has one year left on his contract and has refused to enter negotiations over a new deal.

Manchester City may be willing to meet the £12 million asking price, which would give Zola the funds to strengthen his defence and attack. If Upson did go - and West Ham will not countenance bids for other key players, such as Scott Parker or Carlton Cole - then Zola knows they have to spend wisely.

There is an acceptance at the club that some of the recent purchases have not been successful which has sharpened the focus on the role played by technical director Gianluca Nani, who has been responsible for the signings.

With a transfer fee of £6 million ($13.7 million), Alessandro Diamanti is yet to impress even if Carlo Ancelotti singled him out for praise, hailing his "fantastic technical quality" and ability at set-pieces, which have been a problem for Chelsea of late.

Radoslav Kovac and Luis Jimenez - Zola's signing - have been disappointments while there is still frustration over the money that was wasted on the young striker Savio, who has since been sold to Fiorentina.

One of the accusations levelled at Nani is that he has not recruited enough players of the quality of those who have left.

He will argue that he is working to a tight budget - and the landscape of his job has changed dramatically since the collapse of the business empire of former owner Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson - but most of those signed by West Ham have come from Italy and there has not been a great deal of imagination in the acquisitions.

Reports of financial meltdown have also created an air of uncertainty which has filtered through to the dressing room.

Four bids to buy the club are believed to be on the table with Rothschild having been appointed to sift through potential investors, including a high-profile offer from former Birmingham Cityco-owner David Sullivan.

Zola and Clarke have been an effective team at West Ham with the latter, in particular, a talented coach and organiser who perhaps needs to be allowed more influence at the club.

MEANWHILE, HARRY REDKNAPP is likely to order his players to make a donation to charity rather than fine them two weeks' wages for going against his wishes and holding a secret Christmas party in Dublin this month.

The Tottenham manager is furious about the breach of his rules but has left any disciplinary action until after last night's game against Blackburn.

Redknapp is able to fine the players a maximum of two weeks' wages but, angry though he is, he considers that to be counter-productive.

Redknapp did not conceal his fury at the 16 senior players who made the trip to Dublin last Tuesday but he did show that he has not completely lost his sense of humour over the incident.

"I don't have any sympathy [for them not being able to go out], it's part and parcel of being a footballer," Redknapp said. "You're well paid for it. I'm a football manager - I wouldn't go out and get drunk and fall around and pull some old slag. I'm not that stupid. Even if you wanted to do it, somebody would catch you out. Having said that, Tiger Woods didn't do too bad."

While the players kept the trip a secret until yesterday - they told Redknapp at the time it was a "golf holiday" - they committed the cardinal sin of making their manager look daft.

Two days after they returned, following a fight between the Stoke City manager Tony Pulis and James Beattie over their Christmas party, Redknapp was asked about the subject and said his players would never take the "liberty" of having a party without his knowledge.

Redknapp feels particularly let down by Robbie Keane, the captain and ringleader, whom he brought back from Liverpool in January.

Keane was among the worst performers in the defeat to Wolves, the first match back after the Dublin trip, and was dropped for the Manchester City game.

Redknapp would like to sell him but recognises that Keane's stock is dropping rapidly in football and he would be unable to recoup his money.

Redknapp said yesterday: "I'll be dealing with it all, I promise you. I wouldn't want to say what I'm going to do. I was shocked.

"Manchester United had problems at their party last year. I just didn't want my players having one. I don't believe in them and I don't see why they should happen in today's football. They're more trouble than they're worth. They were told not to do it."

"It's not a distraction. They've not been fighting. I haven't heard anything negative about their party but they didn't ask my permission and they will have to take the consequences of that, which they will do."

Despite his image as a throwback English manager, Redknapp has never been a frequenter of pubs either as a player or a manager and he takes a dim view of drinking among his players.

Keane will find it difficult to regain his place in the team ahead of Peter Crouch and Jermain Defoe. He has been used on the left wing but, with Niko Kranjcar now coming into form and Luka Modric on the way back from injury, that is also unlikely.

This latest incident has been regarded in private at Spurs as a consequence of having a lot of British (and one Irish) players in the squad, for whom drinking is a more ingrained part of the culture.

Only one of the four to miss the party, Gareth Bale, was British. The others were Wilson Palacios, Roman Pavlyuchenko and Giovani dos Santos.

- INDEPENDENT