Sullivan and Gold bid £50m to buy West Ham as Hammers look for a change in fortune

David Gold (left) and David Sullivan (Daily Mail)

Second from bottom after a 3-1 defeat at Bolton, West Ham are slowly emerging as a club in desperate crisis. Cue come former Birmingham City owners David Gold and David Sullivan, who have tabled a £47 million bid to buy the club from Icelandic company Hansa, owned by CB Holdings.

The duo have great business acumen. Gold purchased Birmingham City for a mere £1 in 1992, selling the holding company along with Sullivan for around £83m last month to new owner Carson Yeung. Gold also is a passionate Hammers fan, and lived just yards away from the Upton Park stadium when he was a kid.

The pair have made it clear their intentions if they take over the Hammers. Gold will leave aside £20m in transfer funds for manager Gianfranco Zola to spend, in which he added great emphasis will lay on strengthening their defence and up front.

Hansa, who are in severe finncial trouble due to the Icelandic banking collapse, has a court case on Friday in Reykjavik to determine whether they can have a moribidum approved which effectively would give them 9 months breathing space from paying off debts to their creditors. If the courts approve Hansa's case, then there is every chance that they may reject Gold's and Sullivan's bid. And if they do, the duo are unlikely to increase their offering.

West Ham have had an unlikely time this season. The squad is ravaged with injuries to instrumental first-team players, namely Carlton Cole and Matthew Upson, while Dean Ashton recently confirmed his retirement. Kieron Dyer started Tuesday's match against Bolton, only to break down after 21 minutes due to a groin strain.

The reliance on unproven strikers Alessandro Diamanti and Guillermo Franco is a worrying indictment of West Ham's vulnerability in their forward line. They are both not physically strong enough to go to windswept locations like a Reebok stadium or Birmingham's St Andrews stadium and grab the all-important goals and rescue games.

To be fair, Diamanti and Franco have shown glimpses of sparkle and quality, but the keyword here is glimpses. Diamanti scored on Tuesday, but that was only his second goal for the club since joining at the beginning of the season. He has also struggled for full match fitness, and as a consequence, Zola has used him sparingly in Premier League games.

Coupled with the problems in defence, especially with the form of Robert Green where his form has proved at best, erratic. The back line has struggled, and have missed leaders such as Upson and Lucas Neill, who left the club last summer in a dispute over his pay and contract length.

So the club has hit serious trouble, on and off the field, and a two figureheads like Sullivan and Gold, are needed to give the club much needed stability and financial security.