Marko Arnautovic may have fallen bang out of favour with many but he remains the Hammers best hope for a last lap charge over the last 12 games of the season.

His fall from grace has been dramatic and unsurprising given the January soap opera and his brother’s part in the Chinese soap opera.

Last season Marko won everything in sight at the awards ceremony – Hammer of the Year by a distance – and deservedly so,

But in last week’s CandH  organised poll held to gauge opinion on the leaders in this season’s race for the honour, the striker was  stranded on just five votes or 0.25 per cent of the votes.

It’s a demonstration that above everything else the fans demand loyalty and will turn dramatically once a player’s discontent becomes public.

On this occasion it even led the manager to use the transfer window woes as a reasons for the shocking defeats at Bournemouth Wimbledon and Wolves.

Since his return from injury in the last game Arnautovic has been ineffective which may be a reflection on the fact that he has received little service or something more sinister.

We take nothing for granted at PL level of course but Friday night when Fulham come visiting gives him an opportunity to show that he is still the player he was for us.

A good game and goal or two could easily set him up to become a major player for us again and given the other strikers we have at the club we all need it to happen.

With a new deal under his belt he owes us and I reckon we should make out judgements on where he’s at round about 10 pm on Friday evening.

He has a great opportunity to start putting things right but it still may be too late for many of course!