West Ham are about to have their current and future situations defined in the games against Arsenal and Chelsea.
And I believe they will emerge from the Christmas games with English football being forced to accept that they are now a genuine top four club.
I bumped into Sam Allardyce over the weekend at the Premier League where I work as a pundit and this is a man who is extraordinarily confident at the moment – there’s a spring in his step and quite rightly too.
Sam has always been a manager who has planned how to defend against or exploit the weaknesses of the opposition.
I really don’t think that’s the case anymore. He knows – and so do I – that the Irons are a team for others to worry about. They are genuinely top class and can stay in the top four from now until the end of the season.
There are very few teams who carry the pace, power and threat of West Ham United and I fully expect them to show how good they are by beating Leicester and Arsenal.
Chelsea may be a slightly different proposition but we are gonna give them one hell of a game. We may be beaten but don’t count on it and we will then go on to beat West Brom!
I watch an awful lot of football over the course of a season and to date i haven’t seen a team in action of which the Hammers need to be afraid – the opposite is true.
For us to be coming from behind to gain points on a regular basis tells us all we need to know about this team – we a re top four and I think Champions league football is a very real possibility at the Boleyn next season.
The rest of English football will soon have to wake up to the fact hat we are a top top side!
COYI