Is it a crime to be a positive West Ham fan?

By CandH blogger Allen Cummings

After a weekend when results couldn’t have gone much better for us – 3-0 defeats for Norwich, Watford and Bournemouth in particular, surely we can allow ourselves just a glimmer of ‘positivity’ about what our final fate might be.

There was an independent appraisal of the relegation battle in the Mail on Sunday. The paper looked at the eight teams they considered still in the mix along with us, and they came to the conclusion that in their opinion we would survive.

Not official of course, but music to my ears, and supporters like me, who welcome an up-beat endorsement. But that just doesn’t seem to be the case with some people – and I find that totally baffling. It seems talking up ‘positives’ instead of dwelling on ‘negatives’ is a reason for derision and mockery at our club. Is it really such a crime to be an optimist?

The old conundrum ‘glass half full’ or ‘glass half empty’ has never been more relevant. I’m definitely a ‘half full’ kind of guy – life’s too short to be anything else in my opinion. But that’s frequently attracted accusations of seeing things through ‘rose tinted glasses’.

And that usually comes from the ‘half empty’ brigade who seem happiest when they are running the club down, running the team down or running the manager down – often all three – and predicting nothing but doom and gloom. It’s almost as if they want the team to fail…to fuel a separate agenda.

If we were in an irretrievable position I could understand that depressing attitude. But we’re not – far from it. We’re not along down there, stranded without hope. There are plenty of other teams in the mix with us – why would we in effect talk up their chances of survival while at the same time talking down ours? I just don’t get it.

We have the formidable task of taking on a seemingly ‘unbeatable’ Liverpool tonight. I would justifiably stand accused of wearing rose tinted glasses if I were predicting victory at Anfield.

But a decent performance of any kind will be a bonus in itself – the icing on a satisfying weekend. The two games that had figured highly in the fears of many supporters will then be behind us, leaving 11 games, against less formidable opposition, including several relegation rivals.

That gives us the opportunity to show just what this team are capable of! I believe on paper we have a better squad then our rivals – the time is fast approaching for the players to step up and show it.