Three points against Burnley is imperative if West Ham want to maintain the push to have any chance of a finish in the top six or seven.

Two wins in a row after a horrendous winless run has put us back in the picture to be in with a chance of qualifying for European football for a fourth consecutive season as a result of our league finishing position. It looks as though we will need to finish either sixth or seventh to achieve this. We currently sit in seventh place, two points adrift of Manchester United and two ahead of Newcastle. Our goal difference is similar (just a little inferior) to United, but both of us are a long way short of Newcastle, so if it comes down to it, the Geordies difference is likely to be worth an additional point.

There are probably six teams still in the reckoning to finish sixth or seventh in the final table and all have eleven games remaining apart from Chelsea with twelve. I have discounted the top five in the Premier League as I believe they have enough points and decent enough run-ins to maintain those places. The teams from 6th to 11th are therefore:

  • 6. Manchester United 44 points (27 games)
  • 7. West Ham 42 points (27)
  • 8. Newcastle 40 points (27)
  • 9. Brighton 39 points (27)
  • 10. Wolves 38 points (27)
  • 11. Chelsea 36 points (26)

What I have looked at next is the degree of difficulty in the remaining fixtures for each side based upon the current position in the league table of their remaining opponents. The degree of difficulty factor suggests that Newcastle have the easiest run-in with the average positions of opponents as follows:

Newcastle 12.2, Manchester United 11.7, Chelsea 10.6, Wolves 10.0, West Ham 9.5, Brighton 9.0.

I then took it further and predicted the results of each teams remaining games with a formula based upon fixtures remaining, categorised into teams being faced with a current position of 1-3, 4-5, 6-11, 12-17, and 18-20 given different weightings, whether or not the remaining games are home or away, and the results when the sides met earlier in the season. Additional factors included games against the top 5 teams, and games against each other (i.e. the 6 teams being considered).

The formulas I used gave results as follows: Additional points achieved between now and the end of the season – Chelsea 18 points, Manchester United 17 points, Newcastle 17 points, Wolves 17 points, West Ham 15 points, Brighton 12 points.

The final standings would therefore be:

  • 6. Manchester United – 61 points
  • 7. Newcastle – 57 points
  • 8. West Ham – 57 points
  • 9. Wolves – 55 points
  • 10. Chelsea – 54 points
  • 11. Brighton 51 points

Bookmakers agree with my findings and have Manchester United and Newcastle finishing sixth and seventh. But they also have Brighton and Chelsea above us with West Ham just scraping into the top half in tenth.

It’s just a bit of fun, and my gut feeling is that we’ll be fortunate to do as well as this, perhaps tenth is about right. Football matches are notoriously unpredictable to forecast which stems from various factors like team dynamics, player and overall team form, European and FA Cup games to play, the Thursday / Sunday mix which is often an issue, injuries, and even unpredictable events during a game, as well as all sorts of other miscellaneous factors. If it was that easy then we’d all be very wealthy.

I reckon that to get the 15 points that would give us a chance of qualification we need to beat Burnley, Fulham and Luton, and then collect 6 points from the 6 games against Villa, Newcastle, Tottenham, Wolves, Palace and Chelsea. This could be 2 wins, 1 win and 3 draws or even (very unlikely) 6 draws. Anything more than this would be a bonus. I’ve ruled out getting anything against Liverpool and Manchester City. Even then 15 points might not be enough. But 15 or more points from the position we are in would give us a chance, particularly if we can at least avoid defeat against the other teams involved.

We have 6 home games and 5 away, we face four of the top five, two of the bottom three, three of the other contenders for 6th and 7th, plus Fulham and Palace. We need to begin with three points in this round of matches. If we don’t win against Burnley then we will be facing an uphill struggle to qualify. So that’s it – a whole article without mentioning the continuing Moyes In / Moyes Out issue that is still dominating the forums. Can we finish sixth or seventh? What are the chances?

12 thoughts on “Three points against Burnley is imperative if West Ham want to maintain the push to have any chance of a finish in the top six or seven.”

    1. Hi Michael

      I did say that I reckoned we’d finish tenth. Don’t think I’ll be far wrong.

      The calculations where it came to eighth were based upon standard formulas for all the teams involved, based upon performance to date.

      We shall see but I maintain tenth is about right.

      I might have to change that if we don’t beat Burnley!

      All the best.

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  2. Shrewd analysis Richard,and I’m sorry to say that I agree with you about our final Premiership position. Sadly, IMO, that will eave us out of Europe for the foreseeable future, as I can’t see us winning the Europa League. Even if we beat Freiburg in the home leg ( which I think we will) , we won’t get away with another performance like the last one. Any team with a half decent forward line would have beaten us 4 – 0.
    Leaving aside the Manager, one change I really believe we have to make is to put Zouma out of his misery. I weep to see him struggle to get his body shaped to make even a pass, let alone an athletic interception. He need to get his knee(s) sorted now or e will be walking on sticks at 50, and he should, sadly, be nowhere near Premiership football any more. How Moyse and our so called fitness staff can’t see this is beyond me.

    COYI

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    1. So true about Zouma Mike and seems to be getting worse week by week. I’m amazed that he continues to play – could be in serious trouble well before 50.

      Very disappointing re Freiburg – how did we lose that game?

      all the best

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      1. we lost to Freiburg because we never set out to win. Moyse clearly instructed them to play for a draw and that’s what happens when you do that. We should have taken them apart, but we never looked like we intended to do that.

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    2. Spot on Mike – that’s what can happen when you play for a draw. But it never should have happened- – Bowen and Paqueta both should have scored easy chances.

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  3. Thank you for these stats Richard. Given the possibility of a run in Europe, so much depends on who stays fit as we have, despite the tactics, some top players. I reckon we’ll need at least a draw at Newcastle, though, to stand a chance of coming 7th. Every season a team near the bottom suddenly starts to play. I hope that won’t be Burnley tomorrow!

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    1. Hi John

      Our fixtures are definitely tougher than most of the others in contention- we’ll need some top performances in those games as well as beating the lower (on paper) sides to stand any chance.

      7th would be great but unlikely I reckon – tenth is my prediction with eighth at best. But still a long way to go.

      all the best.

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      1. I have to agree. Unlikely that we’ll end above Newcastle or Man U, given their fixtures and comparative squad strength. But if Bowen, Kudus and Paqueta stay fit, we could get a run going. Here’s hoping…

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  4. The other thing I was going to mention was that it was 6 years ago today we faced Burnley and lost 3-0 at the London Stadium. It was David Moyes first time here – he joined when Bilic was sacked with us in the relegation zone. This was the game with the pitch demonstration, the fans trying to get to the board, Noble grappling with a fan etc.

    We won the next game 3-0 v Southampton and finished the season 13th.

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  5. well Richard, no three points and lucky to get one, judged on our first half performance. In what world are we losing 2 – 0 to Burnley AT HOME! How is it possible that Kalvin Phillips a multi – capped England international has to be hooked at half time? Ward Prowse I can sort of understand. He has been getting worse for weeks and looks exhausted during every game. He is not the most robust human being, and has played a lot of intense games . He badly needs a rest and I hope we don’t see him against Freiberg. But how can Moyse not see this? He played Soucek into the ground last season and is doing it to W – P this. Why did we setup to defend against the worst team in the league? Only Moyse knows, and Moyse never explains – he just blames the players.

    what makes it so much worse are the reported player comments over the next few days. “ can’t understand why we were so terrible, but we were better in the second half. We must learn the lessons and take them into the next game” etc. etc. blah blah blah – and the same again next week. Can no one get a message to them to say we have heard it all, we don’t believe it, just shut up and play football.

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    1. Hi Mike

      And despite all this the forums continue with the Moyes In / Moyes Out debate!

      There certainly seems to be continuing examples of players not improving but actually going backwards after joining West Ham.

      But if we do scrape through on Thursday we’ll be back to the “best manager we’ve ever had” brigade shouting from the rooftops!

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