Omer Out?

Omer Riza says it looks as if he will be leaving Upton Park this summer.

"I'm working hard, but I don't think I have got much longer left at the club, to be honest, because my contract is up," he says.

"I have to get on and start playing to show people what I can do. At the end of the day Glenn has to make his decisions and if you are not wanted at a club you have got to get on with it, and hopefully get back to where you left off - and I will be back.

"I'm looking to move to a first division club next year. I don't know who it will be yet but I have got a few things happening at the moment and I'll just have to wait and see.

"I'm not worried. I know I can play well, it is just waiting for someone to give me the chance now."

Omer has experienced a similar situation to that when he was at Arsenal, from whom he signed in a £25,000 deal in January 1999, in that he was unable to make that final leap into the first team.

"I have given 100% since I have been here, especially this year, and feel I should have got my chance, but I haven't, and that's the way it goes," he says.

"But I've had great experience here and I'll be sad to be leaving because I feel I could have done well, but now it is looking like I have got to move on and hopefully I will do myself justice elsewhere."

Omer was recently involved in a strange incident while playing for the reserves - having caught Derby keeper Patrick Foletti, he was astonished to see him then get booked.

"I know I caught him on his knee, but it was a disgrace really - I thought it had gone out for a throw and that was that," he says.

"It was a fair challenge but he shouldn't have got booked - that was a bit harsh and I've never seen it before - the ref said he made a meal of it."

In the same match, Richard Garcia got sent off for the second time this season, and he says: "He got a yellow for a high tackle then got booked for slinging the ball away a little bit when he got frustrated with himself."

Omer, who has also had loan spells at Den Haag in Holland (while with Arsenal), Cambridge and Barnet last season, is certainly grateful for what the knowledge he has picked up from Glenn and the coaching staff at Upton Park since moving from Highbury.

"I learnt a great deal there," he says, "and I have come here and learnt a great deal again about different ways of playing - it is all in the bank now, and I am ready to start playing first team football."

And the difference in approach?

"I think with Arsenal when I was there it wasn't so close, the way we played. If we came out of an area we wouldn't go back in, we would come out round the other side, whereas here we look to play in triangles with a lot of neat, short passing, coming in and spinning out with a lot of movement - it is a difference, but it is all brilliant."