Nerves are frayed. West Ham have been temporarily reprieved from the certainty of eviction from the Premier League, at least until Sunday’s season finale.
Relegation awaits either the Hammers or Tottenham in the most dramatic final-day fashion. Supporters, in addition, have faced the upheaval of three managers inside two seasons and boardroom turmoil aplenty. Fans, in fact, probably cannot remember what it feels like to have a’normal’ mid table finish.
How we’d love to swop places with, for example, neighbours Crystal Palace: Tantalisingly, just the three extra wins is all it would have taken to have a nice, boring, comfortable fifteenth place finish without the ‘threat’ that has been hanging over the club seemingly ever since Graham Potter’s arrival last year.
Not surprisingly, West Ham supporters have shredded nerves and frayed tempers ahead of Sunday’s decider.
An exhausting business, being a West Ham fan just now
West Ham fan and Claret and Hugh reader “JB” hits the nail on the head with his only-slightly tongue in cheek ‘take’ on how Hammers fans are feeling at this stage of an emotionally draining football season – where West Ham have been deep in the relegation zone for seemingly most of the 37 completed games:
Guest post by ‘JB’:
If ever there was a season that played with your emotions to the max…Then it’s this one…We were relegated by Christmas..Then stupid Spurs entered the room… Free falling from nowhere!…How could they be worse than us???…
So it comes down to Sunday…Sky sports executives are wetting their pants as the two clubs come stumbling into the arena..
Like two punch drunk boxers swinging aimlessly in the dark…We were down… Leave us alone… Most West Ham fans had accepted it…
Now we have to turn up on Sunday and do what we have done all season and support a sorry bunch of want away players….It’s not fair!
.Couldn’t have put it better myself. Cheer up JB, it might, just might, all be worthwhile come 6pm on Sunday.
Seriously !
Who on earth remembers any of the boring mid-table seasons. Who cares if the club is in debt.
If I think back to the greatest moments of supporting the club they are all highs and lows. Relegation fights, last day wins for promotion, play-off and cup finals.
If supporting the club is a solid but drab 8th to 16th place finish and keeping the bank manager happy because we collected another £200 for passing Go then you have very different idea of thrilling to me.
The bookies odds are around 7/1 against both West Ham and Everton winning. So acceptance of relegation is not being negative, it’s just realistic. On the positive side there’s a lot of positives from being in the Championship. Firstly West Ham is a PL club only regarding the stadium size and supporter base. It hasn’t got the management capability, the financial clout, or the culture and ethos to be successful in the PL. And until and unless all of that changes the club would always struggle in the PL. Secondly let’s face it the PL is pretty rubbish these days. Everything is geared to a few big clubs dominating. The broadcast media has far too much influence. VAR is a joke which is ruining the spectator experience. The style of football is not that attractive with emphasis on posession, pressing, set pieces, and players taking advantage of weak refereeing. Behimd this there’s all the stats that guide coaches. Match attending supporters are treated as the lowest form of life. It becomes more and more big business and less of a genuine sport. The Championship is reckoned to be the 7th strongest league in the world and all of these things are either absent or substantially less prevalent. West Ham and its supporters would be better off there while it soul searches as to what sort of club it wants to be, and whether it will make the radical changes necessary to become a successful PL club.
Martin it’s just the way the season have been and it’s bigger than just getting relegated, it’s not getting relegated and sending the spuds down! Now for me their is a third scenario. We win Spurs draw and we go down on goal difference. Now that will make me mad because those who say the disallowed goal against Arsenal doesn’t matter the game is over, move on etc will then see it does matter. The ramifications of that disallowed goal are still affecting our season as it has Man City’s.
I agree with this statement so much. The reality is a lot of these players clearly don’t want to be here anymore, but the same can be said for plenty of Spurs players too. Both clubs have squads built in the modern football machine: inflated wages, agents pulling strings, sporting directors gambling on “projects”, and fans expecting euro football every season because of history or stadium size.
What makes it worse is both fanbases seem to massively overestimate where their clubs actually are. We’ve become so quick to turn on players, managers and each other that nobody appreciates the few good moments we do get anymore. At least West Ham are still viewed with a bit more respect than Spurs in terms of culture and identity, but even that only lasts if supporters stop acting miserable 24/7.
We need more gratitude, more realism, and more proactive support instead of endless moaning every time things aren’t perfect. The club has problems, absolutely, but constant negativity helps nobody. Sometimes it feels like our own fans and fanzines kill the atmosphere before the opposition even gets the chance.
With that in mind, we are down, lets enjoy the Championship for what it is, and hopefully we won’t get stuck in the mire for too long.
Both teams have been shambolic all season and unfortunately for us i can see Leeds and Everton both winning