Given that this is the season of good cheer, happiness, goodwill to all men and the giving of presents etc us Hammers aren’t doing at all badly.
It’s worth taking a look back of the past couple of months as the festive season approaches and take a look at the goodies we have been able to find in our club stocking!
The London Stadium operators appeared to cave in and give us everything we’ve been after before the team started climbing the league with those three three goal wins. Now the claret carpet has been ordered and is on the way!
Mister Pellegrini is proving a point or ten and it’s great to see because this is a class manager showing us what you get for £10 million a year even when you have up to eight key players out injured.
What the out of court settlement really meant beyond the hyped 3,000 new season tickets was that a war between landlords and tenants which has disfigured our occupancy is over and we can all move on into a peaceful future.
Pellegrini’s management has for me been quite brilliant. He puts things so simply:
O “I’m building a squad not a team”
O I’m not going to change – this is not an experiment (after four defeats)
O “Don’t take any team anything less than very seriously – the next game will be the hardest because it’s the next one.”
O “Everywhere we go we will be playing as a big team.”
To have waited patiently for his marquee signing Anderson to find his real form and at the other end of the scale transformed Robert Snodgrass’ game shows the quality of this man.
There has been the decision to let the best youngsters train with the first team squad, a move which has seen the emergence of Grady Diangana with the likes of Xande Silva and Nathan Holland very much on the premises at Rush Green.
These developments are the mark of a man who after a lifetime in the game knows exactly what he is doing and by the way another honourable mention for academy director Terry Westley and his staff is due.
I like the way he addresses prickly issues making it clear to Reece Oxford he needed to improve fast if he is not to face the exit door whilst publicly telling Andy Carroll he needed to demonstrate he was worth a new deal at the club come summer.
He didn’t need to say a word but knew these were issues troubling the fans and he wasn’t frightened to make his point to both players.
For the first time in many years I can’t sing “fortune’s always hiding” with too much conviction because after that dreadful start we are looking like a team on the rise.
Yep bring Christmas on – the build up to it has been brilliant and two more wins against Fulham and Watford before the big day would be the icing on the Christmas cake!
And you know what? The best is yet to come!
COYI