By Hughie Southon
We have been told at various times over the past few weeks that West Ham have turned the corner.
And after five games uneaten at the London Stadium it’s easy to understand why the optimists among us see it that way.
Tomorrow night is the first serious test against a top team since we produced a top performance at St James’ Park although the home draw against a sliding Chelsea team was also more than acceptable,
Other than those games, we have managed to beat relegation candidates Everton. Forest and Saints and that has encouraged Davis Moyes to adopt an upbeat approach to Wednesday evening’s game.
However, he will surely know that with us having just over 40 per cent of the possession against Southampton in what is best described as a dour performance, it will take a much improved performance to take the points against Eddie Howe’s high flying outfit.
He has been discussing the game at his presser today and said: ” The players have done what I expected [in these crunch games so far].
We have big characters and good players and they have done exactly what we wanted. But now we need to get moving and get a bit higher up and be positive in every game we go into.
It was a really important victory against Southampton and puts us into a position where now it is up to us to try and stay away from the bottom end of the league.
Obviously we’ve not been in a strong position and getting out of trouble is really important. The players know and understand the position we’re in; know and understand the job we have to do, and obviously the Club has been in this position several times before.
I’m not saying that gives you any greater experience or any greater understanding of doing it, but I think it tells you we have to find ways of winning and in the last couple of games we’ve been able to do that.”
Moyes obviously does not comprehend that it all starts with the manager. He will again refuse to play a forward thinking midfielder in with Rice and Paqueta. He will continue to play a total over rated Bowen and he still will play Ings up top on his own. The Scottish wizard has a absolutely no clue.