As the end to this interminable international break stretches still over the horizon with another weekend of Nations League football ahead, few West Ham fans will be looking too closely at the Championship league table with any degree of interest until squads start to reassemble early next week.
Yet that hasn’t stopped the conjecture flying around over who’s going up, who’s going down and who’s got most to prove in the weeks and months that lie ahead.
Sitting pretty in second place is great after eight games but we’ll know a lot more about West Ham’s title credentials come the end of the year – I think (although I’ll happily be corrected if not) it was Alex Ferguson who suggested the league table wasn’t worth worrying about until after Christmas.
Alan Pardew – promotion winner with West Ham- raises three key questions which will need answering in the coming months
Former Hammers boss Alan Pardew, speaking to givemesport, again aired his own worries over Nuno’s West Ham, claiming whilst the team ‘was the best technically’ it was their mental strength which would determine their promotion outcome, with answers to his own three questions being the crucial factors that are still unproven:
“West Ham, technically, are probably the best team,” he said.
“But have they got the fight? Have they got the desire? Can they match the physicality of the opposition? All those questions have to be answered.”
From watching the team develop, you’d suggest the answer to those three questions was 100% ‘no’ just two months ago as the old, relegation – season frailties were only too evident as the squad took it’s first steps in this ferocious division.
Post-Millwall, you’d have to reconsider. There was a case of a team going two down, playing poorly yet forcing a draw through sheer weight of will.
Which suggests they are coming to grips with the demands of this Championship campaign, both physical and mental. Much depends on the fitness of key players but – we’re about to find out over the sixteen games that lie ahead before the end of the year how real West Ham’s promotion credentials really are.
Thanks Martin – Pards had one season where we got promoted through the playoffs almost in spite of ourselves (we finished 6th to squeeze into the playoffs) then one fantastic season in the Premier league followed by a terrible half season before he got fired
Then he had a couple of good seasons at Newcastle followed by a series of disasters – I think the last was at West Brom
I don’t remember much fight in those seasons – in his last match in charge he called for Warriors and we were torn apart by Anelka and Bolton
So let us see whether we show fight rather than talking about fight
I agree with your assessment of the Millwall game where we didnt allow heads to drop at half time
Worth pointing out that Alan Pardew had a last second gift thrown on him in his last half season with us, Zahama.
He was ‘forced’ to include Mascherano and Tevez in his starting eleven as part of the terms of the loan from Kia Jobchurian. They were deposited with us to put them in the European shop window. That part worked for the two players and their handler.
Tevez never got the ball until after Curbs’ last nine games. Mascherano was just far too good to be any use with his team mates. Hayden Mullins and company used to trot along with Mascherano, watching and wondering what was going to happen. A superstar who stuck out like a sore thumb in Alan Pardew’s West Ham side.
You are so right about the fight. But he was not helped with the Argentine stars in their shop window.
Aahh – memories! COYI
Thanks Taffy Hammer and very true