Can West Ham come out on top in the battle of the Clarets?

With a season that began a little over four months ago, we have now played 17 games. After the relegation battles in the last campaign and minimal transfer activity in the summer window, how many of us would have expected that at this stage we would be in the top half of the table, with 26 points, just half a dozen points off third place, and only conceded just 21 goals, the same as Liverpool, Leicester, Everton and Chelsea, and fewer than league leaders Manchester United? And of course into the fourth round of the FA Cup where a relatively straightforward (on paper!) home tie against Doncaster awaits.

Following the games against Burnley, and then Big Sam’s West Brom on Tuesday we will have reached the halfway point of the season. In the equivalent 19 games last season (substituting the relegated teams with promoted teams) we collected 20 points. We are already six points ahead with two games to come. Two wins would take us to 32 points; a win and a draw to 30, and if we lost these games then of course we would still be on 26. Not bad for the midpoint of the season. An equal points tally in the second half would mean between 52 and 64 points for the whole campaign. This is our 25^th season in the Premier League, and the most we’ve managed is 62 when we were seventh in the final season at the Boleyn (2015/16). Next best is 57 when we attained our highest ever Premier League finish of 5^th in 1998/9. We average a little over 47 points a season in the Premier League so we are definitely on course for better than average, and potentially for the best ever. Quite a turnaround after last season.

Against Burnley we kick off for the first time this season in a league game at 3pm on a Saturday. Of course the circumstances are very different from normal. As a small boy the first football season that I remember is 1958/9. Today’s opponents were a force in the English game around that time finishing 7^th in the top flight (Division 1) that year, and in the following years 1^st (yes champions – something we’ve never achieved), 4^th, 2^nd, 3^rd, 9^th, 12^th, 3^rd. But by the late 1960s they were in decline compared to the previous few years and regularly in the bottom half, until they were finally relegated in 1970-71. They returned briefly in the 1970s but were once again relegated in 1975-76, beginning a long period of significant decline and very nearly oblivion.

1n 1986/87 they were in the fourth tier and only escaped relegation from the Football League on the last day of the season. Since then they have slowly climbed back up the leagues. After 33 years out of the top flight they returned in 2009/10. They’ve been down again a couple of times since but have returned swiftly under Sean Dyche’s management. This is now their fifth consecutive season in the Premier League but it hasn’t started well. A terrible start saw them with just two points in their first seven games with goalless draws away at West Brom and Brighton. But they have rallied well with 14 points from their last 9 games, beating Crystal Palace, Arsenal, Wolves and Sheffield United to bring them up to 16 points from 16 games to put them 16^th in the table. They have scored fewer goals than any other team in the division with just 9. And in 10 of their 16 games there has only been one goal or less scored by both teams added together, including three goalless draws. On that basis we are not looking forward to a high scoring game, although hopefully we can do enough to collect the three points.

Our record against Burnley in history shows that we are very slightly ahead in wins but we have lost the last three conceding six goals in total without scoring ourselves. We’ve also only won once in the last five when we beat them 4-2 in November 2018 with goals from Arnautavic, Anderson 2, and Hernandez. There will be no spectators around this time to stick the corner flag into the centre of the pitch as happened in our 3-0 defeat in March 2018!

In my lifetime I have some good memories of past games against the Clarets. On a warm Monday evening in August 1968 we beat them 5-0, with four goals shared by the two knights, Sir Trev and Sir Geoff, and another from Martin Peters.

There was an exciting 5-3 win in November 2009 when we had five different goalscorers (Collison, Stanislas, Carlton Cole pen, Franco, and Jimenez pen – some interesting names from the past there) and scored two penalties. At one stage midway through the second half we led 5-0. Isn’t it about time we were awarded a penalty this season?

In the FA Cup in 2011 we beat them 5-1 in the fifth round with goals from Hitzlsperger, Carlton Cole 2, Reid, and Sears. However we then went out in the quarter final losing 2-1 at Stoke, having already beaten them twice earlier in the season. This was the Avram Grant year when we were relegated after finishing bottom.

But my favourite of all was, as a ten year old when I turned up with my dad at Upton Park at 11am to queue to get in at midday for the 1964 FA Cup quarter final that kicked off at 3pm (as all games did in those days) on Leap Years Day. We stood very close to the halfway line beneath the West Stand at the very front crushed against the wall and saw a famous 3-2 victory with two goals from Budgie Byrne and another from John Sissons. That was the year of our first FA Cup triumph, after beating Manchester United 3-1 in the semi-final, and then Preston 3-2 in the final.

But talk of all those goals is unlikely to be followed up today when I expect a tight affair. Perhaps 1-0, the same as last season, but this time with us as the victors? What are the chances?