Under-fire Pardew to sell Bobby

Bobby Zamora could be an imminent departure from West Ham as beleaguered manager Alan Pardew desperately searches for consistency from his erratic team.

West Ham followed up an encouraging 2-0 victory at Championship leaders Ipswich with a woeful performance against Sheffield United at Upton Park and Pardew admitted today: "There are one or two options and I may take them. There are one or two players here also who will be sweating on whether they get the shirt."

Pardew also admitted, following the 2-0 defeat by United, that he is under pressure. "I wasn't feeling that way on Saturday after the Ipswich result but after a performance like that against United there is pressure again because we are in a results business," he said.

The former Reading manager, who has struggled to win over West Ham fans, will be seriously considering trying to freshen up his squad during the next few weeks with Zamora likely to be one of the first to depart.

The Barking-born striker, who came to Upton Park as part of the deal which took Jermain Defoe to Tottenham, had been given his chance following an injury to Teddy Sheringham.

Although he did reasonably well against Ipswich, he looked badly out of touch against Sheffield United and was substituted along with Matthew Etherington at half-time and with West Ham already 1-0 down after a Derek Geary shot was deflected in by Tomas Repka. Stoke have been consistently interested in taking Zamora while Reading could also be preparing a firm bid for the former Spurs man.

On the evidence of their display against an organised, energetic United team, though, it will need more than just a little tinkering to turn this West Ham into consistent performers.

Given that Neil Warnock's side have only lost three Championship matches away from Bramall Lane, this was still a totally inept display from a side who, just 48 hours earlier, had looked so impressive against Ipswich.

What was particularly hard for West Ham fans to stomach was the lack of any really quality and, in some cases, desire.

United won all the individual battles while West Ham failed to muster a shot on target in 94 minutes of football.

"Some of our displays as individuals were not good enough," said Pardew.

"The work rate and effort were terrific at Ipswich but there wasn't the same emphasis today. They were better than us in all areas and I just can't keep defending our inconsistency."

Pardew brought on Sergei Rebrov and Luke Chadwick for Zamora and Etherington at halftime but it hardly made any difference and United, who went above West Ham as a result of the win, scored a second goal after 59 minutes through defender Leigh Bromby.