Chelsea Performance Offers West Ham Tiny Bit Of Encouragement

It’s difficult to find many positives in having to wait until Tuesday for Tottenham Hotspur to face Chelsea.

It means that irrespective of West Ham’s result against Newcastle United today, we’ll still be left sitting around waiting without fully understanding the context of whatever Nuno Espírito Santo and the boys have or haven’t achieved at St James’ Park.

That said, there is one tiny advantage.

Should the Hammers somehow do a number on Eddie Howe’s side, Spurs will then have a long time to stew on it.

Make no mistake about it, Tottenham remain in a highly advantageous position where a win and a draw from their final two games would almost certainly see them safe.

But scoreboard pressure does strange things to teams.

Chelsea May Still Have Something Left

And whilst yesterday’s FA Cup defeat will have dented Chelsea, their performance at least demonstrated they are not about to simply roll over against Tottenham.

Factor in the appointment of Xabi Alonso as their new manager and hopefully some of those players will be desperate to impress.

I fully understand we’re clutching at straws here.

And frankly, it’s shambolic that West Ham have reached the point where we’re relying on fixture scheduling quirks and a potential new-manager bounce from somebody who hasn’t even officially arrived yet.

But at this stage, I’ll take absolutely anything.

West Ham Must Do Their Own Job First

The problem is we still have to do our own job first.

And that means winning at St James’ Park.

If we somehow manage it, there will no doubt be celebrations.

But they would probably feel oddly muted because without knowing Tottenham’s result, we still won’t really be much wiser in the bigger picture.