West Ham fans this morning seem divided into opinions of two polar opposites: Most are convinced that the Hammers are dead and buried, whilst a minority are the super-optimists, convinced there’s a miracle still awaiting the club in this season’s relegation battle.
The reality is probably somewhere in the middle. We’ve all seen the improbable results of our own team and of others on occasion defying the odds.
Now that cuts both ways as evinced by Tottenhams’ ‘Walk in the Villa Park‘ last night. Nobody can blame Emery for sending out a substandard side, but few had expected the capitulation to be that marked. Even Aston Villa fans were shocked.
Former West Ham captain Nigel Reo Coker – who has been there at the forefront of a relegation battle – has been speaking on 5 live daily with some sound common sense that perhaps offers a more considered, grounded view:
“I’ve been in a relegation scrap myself and I think for me when you look at West Ham and their momentum, performances have been there, which is a massive thing. There’s the belief you can win games or get something out of it.
Now this weekend, the result doesn’t reflect the performance so it’s going to be about Nuno getting his players over it by saying: ‘OK we didn’t get the result, but the performance was there to keep that belief and momentum going into the next run of fixtures.
If they play like that, they will get the right results.”
And hope our rivals implode’ – perhaps ‘Nige’ could have added.
But, true enough, there’s still nine points to play for, and Spuds are just one ahead. Maybe not quite time to abandon ship just yet, but best to get the lifeboats ready and waiting. Reo Coker seems to be suggesting this relegation battle has another twist in it yet.
Hammers fans will be too exhausted to summon up much enthusiasm for his words. After all “it’s the hope that kills you”. And we’ve all been ‘hoping’ for about a year and a half.
Hopefully the pressure of being one ahead will be detrimental to spurs. Nobody would expect us to get a result against Arsenal, but stranger things have happened! Hopefully we’ll all be pleasantly surprised this time next week!
Martin, I still don’t understand why we didn’t give one of our young forwards some minutes in the cup games. I’m talking about the likes of Ajala, Cummings or even Landers. One of them could have hit the ground running, but I suppose now we will never know.
We perhaps could have had a good young energetic forward to bring on to pair up with Taty or Wilson.
Though I like Pablo’s energy and pressing, his end product is pretty much non-existent. Could any of the three mentioned about be any worse? Probably not.
Kante has been given chances, and to be honest he’s looked pretty decent when called upon from the bench. If only we had been a bit braver, things might be different now.
Spuds are only one ahead Martin. ⚒️⚒️⚒️
yeah thanks Terry. Tired. of all of it. As we all are!
In reality Spuds are only one point ahead Martin, but I’m guessing you are including our awful goal difference as almost an extra point 👍