Make no mistake this season is all about Manuel Pellegrini!

From the worst beginnings so many good things have flowed and as we turn the corner into the new year I have never seen the club so buoyant and optimistic.

My God, it really takes some getting used to doesn’t it?

There wasn’t immediate unanimous agreement within the board  on the appointment at £13 million for him and his backroom team – not surprising as we had never been in such a place previously

But a series of board meetings – perhaps the most critical in many years – eventually brought agreement that this had to be done.

Let’s be 100 per cent honest about this, there was a mega shift in the board’s approach as previously, it has to be said, the club was being run along the same lines as we had seen at Birmingham City under their stewardship in terms of managers employed and players bought.

But the appointment of the Chilean will I believe be remembered as the moment West Ham turned the corner from regular mediocrity into a big club.

Yes, those words again  – “a big club” – regularly used by the manager over recent weeks as the team’s form has surged in the worst possible injury circumstances.

These days the West Ham squad fear nobody and draws are simply not part of their psyche – five wins from six games tells it’s own story. No “respect the point ” nonsense anymore – every team is there to be beaten.

What a year it’s been with the dramas surrounding the stadium and the desperately awkward landlords and finally a conclusion which saw us win all we wanted, an absolutely disastrous start to the season and the growing growls of protest.

Now here we are celebrating the end of all that and the new SIX YEAR DECLAN RICE CONTRACT. Hallelujah.

It’s been as extraordinary as anything I’ve seen in my time supporting this club over 50 years and soon we will be rolling out not the red but the claret carpet – staggering.

And this needs to be said as January 1 approaches: Every single one of the long suffering Hammers fan base deserves all this  more than any other group I can think of.

Leaving the wonderful Boleyn was as bad as it will ever get for thousands of us but under Pellegrini and the new West Ham Way of playing it is getting so much easier.

For once everything is coming up roses and fortune is no longer hiding.

May all of us at CandH wish you the happiest of new years and thank you Senor Pelle!