It was a shame that Alex Song was signed too late in the day before West Ham’s home game against Southampton. Encouraging though it was to have the player from Barcelona paraded on the ground before kick-off, it would have been nice to have one of the pre-match interviews with the former Arsenal midfielder.

To the imagined question: "When you were at the Nou Camp, you used to look up and see Lionel Messi before you – here at the Boleyn it will be Carlton Cole or Ricardo Vaz Te. Are you excited by the prospect?", the season-long loanee would have needed all his diplomatic skills to conjure an answer. As it is, quite what the Cameroon international thought watching his new club being hopelessly outplayed at home by the Saints has’nt been reported, but it’s hard not to guess what the board may have thought. After all, Sam Allardyce has spent the best part of three years trying to find a forward while it appeared Ronald Koeman had managed to rebuild an entire Southampton team in three weeks.

The first international break of the year is always a frustrating time for football supporters. Barring the excellent opportunity afforded by the ‘Non-League Day’ initiative, it just seems that everyone has got geared up for the new season only for it all to stop again for ten days. For Allardyce and his coaching staff though, it appears the break has come at the right time, as a good opportunity to work on things on the training ground is desperately needed.

It would be a particularly miserly supporter who’d suggest that West Ham haven’t worked hard to bring in some quality during the transfer window; the Hammers look a much more robust outfit – particularly in midfield and wide areas – but it’s hard not to feel that this current squad look a strong outfit on paper but lack direction on the pitch. Cole and Vaz Te are both good servants and there is a good argument to say these are strong squad players who can do a job from the bench, but when the manager picks the pair to start when he tried to discard both last season then questions have to be asked. They won’t be answered, of course, but that’s not the point.

The late signing of Morgan Amalfitano allied to the Song deal and the excellent acquisition of Cheikhou Kouyaté make this a very powerful midfield unit. Although a bad injury to one of the centre-backs might raise concerns, it is still the mis-firing forward line that is likely to be Allardyce’s undoing.

Supporters worrying that they are suffering some type of ‘Groundhog Day’ can rest easy though. It’s not September 2013 again but – yes! – we are still hoping that Andy Carroll will be back by Christmas.