Far too early in the season to start counting any chickens, with just one sixth of the games completed. Especially with the championship being one of the most competitive, evenly matched divisions in world football. All well and good, West Ham lie second after a slightly dodgy start but there’s a mountain to climb before May.

Just in case any of the players or coaching staff were getting ahead of themselves with any ideas of walking off with the title, (unlikely, with the relegation hangover only just lifting) – one former Hammers’ veteran of the 2005 promotion campaign has voiced his own concerns over not getting carried away – just yet. As reported by  theleaguepaper.com:

‘Teddy Sheringham warns West Ham they cannot afford complacency’..

The former England, Spurs, Portsmouth, Manchester United and Hammers veteran has not minced his words when pinpointing the dangers which the Irons will encounter if they start for one minute to get ahead of themselves:

“Are West Ham going to run away with the Championship now? I don’t think so..

This is what happens in the Championship. You have a good month, you find yourself propelled up the table, but they stuttered at the start of the season…Now all of a sudden they’ve won five games out of six and are looking very good, but they could just as quickly start looking a bit dodgy again…

Someone else will have a good month and they’ll come flying past everyone else.”

“West Ham and other clubs like Swansea City just need to keep up that continuity in what they’re doing because it’s all about consistency in the Championship.“

Ninety two points seems, according to some reports, to be the consensus as a clear promotion target in just about every season in the last 10 years. Until the Hammers get close to that there’s simply no space for relaxing or for Nuno to revert to type and start respecting the point or any of that nonsense again.

Because this is a once-only opportunity to bounce back. Make no bones about it, failure to get promoted at the first attempt is unthinkable with the second player exodus that’d follow and the financial drain upon the club which would likely sentence them to the ‘football wilderness’ for a generation.