AT the foot of the table, from where West Ham sit looking up towards ‘safety’ with a fair degree of envy, things are getting tense. ‘If only’ thoughts abound – after Nuno’s West Ham side have already dropped fifteen points from winning positions.
This weekend’s ‘bottom-table derbies’ pit four relegation-threatened sides against each other as Leeds take on Nottingham Forest on Friday before West Ham travel to Burnley the following day, in what could become a pivotal weekend in the Irons’ battle for survival.
Burnley themselves missed the chance to draw within two points of West Ham last night by falling to a 3-0 loss against Sunderland – with new loanee James Ward-Prowse an unused substitute.
The exiled West Ham midfielder must have hoped to end his Hammers misery with a fresh start at Burnley – but failed to make an impact on the Clarets manager Scott Parker, who stated after the game:
“He’s looking alright..He’s had two days training and I don’t think it was right to bring him into that environment tonight….There’s a longer journey for James really, so like I said, he needs to get some football in.
“We’ve got obviously the cup game coming up as well, but he’s ineligible to play against West Ham, so we’ll get him up to speed.”
Must have been a huge disappointment for the former England midfielder to fail to get on the pitch at all – he’s been waiting since Graham Potter left West Ham to try and make a positive impact.
Burnley meanwhile remain five points behind the Hammers: A West Ham victory on Saturday will surely close the door on their ‘escape’ chances and would lift the Hammers to within three points of whoever loses the other ‘relegation derby’ on Friday night….
Can’t see him getting many minutes, but at least Burnley are paying 85% of his wages to sit on their bench
Or within 4 points of both, which might be the most realistic outcome, depending on whether Leeds are starting to feel the pressure. Ignoring what the other teams do, West Ham must focus on winning at least five of their remaining 14 games and then picking up some points from the other 9 to try and hit 38 points. Maybe that will be enough, but Nuno remains the biggest threat. Best case scenario, Spurs finish 18th and West Ham survive.
That “pivotal weekend” could have happened last weekend; or the weekend before, or the one before that ad infinitum. But, it didn’t – even when we won 2 games it didn’t really improve our position with regard to Forest & Leeds. So, what are the chances of it happening now ? Pretty small, I reckon. Sure, we are, genuinely “capable” of beating Burnley & Leeds, but the same could have been said about Forest, Brentford, Brighton etc etc; & we didn’t. You could even have said it about Man U & Bournemouth & – even – Chelsea; but we throw in the towel far too easily ! I REALLY hope that we beat Burnley & Leeds – but I have seen nothing that suggests that further towels will not be flying onto the pitch !
Disgraceful treatment of a quality international new signing by Parker. James must be devastated not to be picked after a couple of days in the job.
JWP deserves better.
Is the best scenario that Forest and Leeds draw? Still got a feeling Palace ae going to be our rivals for relegation
This is really about how we perform the lads need to keep working hard and believing. No complacency
Or 7 points behind if we lose and they draw
nothing like being an optimist…