Author: Richard Bennett

This weekend we resume our battle for top flight survival with a difficult away game at Liverpool, who remain unbeaten at Anfield this season, although six of their thirteen visitors have come away with a point. Five of them are not particularly surprising as they are all top half teams, namely Burnley, Manchester United, Chelsea, Everton, and Tottenham. But in December the team now rooted to the foot of the table, West Brom, managed a goalless draw there.

Although our form over the last dozen games is impressive we are still only four points above the relegation zone. 20 points in those 12 games is a magnificent haul with 5 wins, 5 draws and just 2 defeats, and is bettered only by the very top teams. The disappointing feature though is that it could, and perhaps should, have been so much better. The two losses in that run were at home to Newcastle and away at Brighton, whereas two of the draws were disappointing home games against Bournemouth and Palace. We could be well away from the drop zone by now, but instead we are still in the mix, and failure to pick up something in the next two away games starting today against in-form teams Liverpool, looking to score four goals for the third game in a row, and next week the resurgent Swansea, would keep us well in trouble.

Liverpool themselves have no real injury concerns and can field almost their strongest line-up. They have won six of their last eight games and their only defeat in the last four months came at the hands of Swansea just a month ago. I noticed a statistic on the BBC website that said that Jurgen Klopp has suffered 17 league defeats as a manager of Liverpool in the whole of his time there, and if you averaged out the position in the table of those teams who beat them – then it is 12^th. We are currently 12^th in the table, but that is really clutching at straws!

For some time now I have had Mo Salah in my fantasy team, and he is continuing to impress with his goalscoring and assists. We will do well to keep him quiet. And apparently David Moyes has managed 14 visiting sides at Anfield and never managed to win there. Well there’s always a first time!

The bookmakers don’t really give us a prayer in this game quoting odds of 12/1 on a Hammers win and 6/1 on the draw, with Liverpool 1/5 to collect the three points. If you believe that we can sneak a win then you can get 35/1 on a score of 2-1, 45/1 on 1-0, and 80/1 on 2-0, with some very big odds if you think we can do better than that.

One thing in our favour is that our lengthy injury list of a few weeks ago seems to be largely diminishing, but this game will be a real test of how far we have come since the arrival of the new manager, and conversely will show how much further we still have to go. I noticed that after the Watford game David Moyes was targeting a top ten finish. On paper might not seem too much of a target as we are only one point off tenth position. In fact we are only six points behind Burnley who are lying seventh, but that would almost certainly be too much to hope for, even for the most optimistic of us, given the difficulty of many of our fixtures in the last eleven games. In eight of them we play teams currently filling the top nine places in the table.

Apart from Carroll, all of our attacking players seem to be fit, and it will be interesting to see how many of Chicharito, Arnie, Lanzini, Mario and Antonio will be accommodated into the team, especially for a tricky away fixture. My prediction for the team he will pick, and I very rarely get this right, is:

Adrian, Zabaleta, Collins, Ogbonna, Cresswell, Kouyate, Noble, Mario, Antonio, Arnautavic, Chicharito. Lanzini may be left on the bench after a lengthy lay-off together with Hugill, Rice, Byram, Reid, Hart and Cullen.

It is hard to see us winning the game, and probably the best we can hope for is a draw. But what I’ll be looking for is a competitive performance that will stand us in good stead for the run-in, irrespective of the result. 0-0 would be a very unlikely score against our free-scoring opponents and is priced at 25-1! I wonder if we can keep the score to that after 90 minutes?

The Premier League is the most popular league in the world in terms of spectators and media appeal yet we all knew who would win the title after just a few short weeks of the season. And before the season started we all knew which teams would occupy the top six places, even if we weren’t exactly sure as to the exact order they would finish in. And as we all predicted, the top six places have gone to the “big six” in terms of the revenue that they generate, and I’ve no doubt the same will happen next season. OK, so there is still a mini competition taking place to see which clubs will finish in the top four and qualify for the Champions League, but in reality the most “popular” league in world football is so predictable, and it all comes down to money.

We are not alone. The “generally recognised” big five European Leagues have all turned out as expected. Manchester City’s 13 point lead in England is well beaten by Bayern’s massive 18 point advantage in Germany. PSG are 11 ahead in France, Barcelona are 9 clear in Spain, and the only competition for the title outright is in Italy where Napoli and Juventus are just one point apart, although 13 clear of the pack. Season after season the same teams qualify for the latter stages of the Champions League. It is all so predictable. And as a result, it is becoming boring.

For me the most interesting aspect of the Premier League is not who is going to win it, or even qualify for Europe, but the real competition involves the 14 teams who have no chance of winning, and little likelihood of qualifying for a place in the Champions League. If the predictability continues then perhaps the top six teams can be ignored, and a trophy can be awarded to the team that finishes 7^th? The competition among those 14 teams is fierce, and the battle to avoid finishing in the bottom three is (sadly) by far the most exciting part of the Premier League. For a long time now there has been talk of European Leagues whereby all the top clubs in Europe ignore their domestic competitions and take part in Europe alone. I’m surprised that it hasn’t yet happened. If we removed the top six teams from the Premier League the competition for the title among the remainder would be a far more open affair. Would we miss playing them? I for one would not. I suspect that the same would be true of all the other top European leagues.

So, getting back to this season, with just 12 games to go Burnley lead the chase for the “seventh place title” on 36 points, just one ahead of Leicester, who in turn are then four clear of Bournemouth and Everton. Today’s opponents Watford are just one point further back on 30, before the cluster of 9 clubs that make up the bottom portion of the table. Burnley and Leicester are as good as safe from relegation, whilst the three clubs below them are almost there, but not quite. Of the nine clubs that are seriously in the mix at the moment, we are at the top (12^th) on 27 points, but only three points ahead of 19^th placed Huddersfield. Only West Brom with 20 points are beginning to be cast adrift.

The closeness of the fight to avoid the drop makes for an interesting finale to the season, and every match from here to the end assumes massive importance. A win for us today will take us up level on points with Watford and edging closer to safety, whereas three points for the visitors would be a huge step towards ensuring Premier League football at Vicarage Road next season.

Recent form is often a good indicator of what is likely to happen, but this can be distorted by other factors such as the strength and form of opposition, and whether games have been played at home or away. Nonetheless it is worth taking a look at the bottom 12 with a dozen games to go and look at how many points they have picked up in recent matches. I’ve chosen the last 5 fixtures for each team, which in itself may or may not be a reliable indicator of the term “recent”.

The bottom 12 teams in the Premier League after 26 games	Points after 26 games	Current Goal Difference	Points in last 5 games
9. Bournemouth	31	-7	11
10. Everton	31	-16	4
11. Watford	30	-8	5
12. West Ham	27	-14	6
13. Brighton	27	-14	5
14. Crystal Palace	27	-15	8
15. Southampton	26	-10	6
16. Newcastle	25	-12	6
17. Swansea	24	-18	8
18. Stoke City	24	-26	4
19. Huddersfield	24	-27	0
20. West Brom	20	-16	4

Based on the recent form table alone then the current bottom three would be the ones playing in the Championship next season. As they include two teams that I dislike the most (West Brom and Stoke) then I wouldn’t be unhappy with that outcome. Our final twelve games comprise 7 at home and 5 away. Five of the 12 games are against sides in the bottom 12 (above), with four of them at home (Watford, Southampton, Stoke, Everton) and one away (Swansea). These games are crucial to our survival and are true six-pointers. It is important to win most of those games, and equally important to avoid defeat if we don’t pick up three points from each of them. Apart from the Swansea game, the other four away matches are against sides in the top eight (Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Leicester) so we are unlikely to collect many points from them. A home game against the champions elect (City) won’t be a walk in the park either, nor will two other home fixtures against top eight sides (Manchester United and Burnley).

The importance of today’s game cannot be over-estimated. The gap between ourselves and Watford could be wiped out if we win, or extend to six points if we lose. Here are a ten factors to bear in mind in respect of this match, some of which are very worrying given West Ham’s predilection to allow other teams to end sequences of poor results:

1. If we avoid defeat that will extend our unbeaten run in league and cup at home to five matches – that would be a record for the London Stadium!
2. As a manager, David Moyes has never lost a home game against Watford.
3. This will be our 14^th game this season against a team who are currently above us in the table. The only game that we have won so far was at home to Chelsea. Nine of our final twelve games will be against teams currently in the 11 places above us in the table!
4. Watford have only won one of their last ten away games.
5. Watford have never beaten us twice in the league in a single season ever.
6. Watford won their last game convincingly beating Chelsea 4-1. They haven’t won two league games in a row for more than three months.
7. Michail Antonio has scored 6 goals in his last 7 games against Watford.
8. Michail Antonio scored both of our goals when we lost 4-2 at home to Watford last season (September 2016). He hasn’t scored a goal at the London Stadium since!
9. We have played a home league game against Watford before on February 10^th (11 years ago). We lost 1-0.
10. West Ham are 11/8 favourites to win the game, Watford are 15/8, with the draw at 23/10.

When I was a football-mad young boy growing up in the 1960’s, although you had your favourite team that you supported, many would have a second team that they followed. The comics and magazines aimed at young boys, such as the Tiger, Roy of the Rovers, Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly, Goal, Soccer Star etc. positively encouraged appreciation of players and teams beyond your own. Especially following the 1966 World Cup, when West Ham players were instrumental (to say the least) in England lifting the trophy for the one and only time, many acknowledged us as their favourite second team. I can personally relate to this as when I advertised for pen friends (do youngsters still do this activity these days?) in Soccer Star magazine I was swamped with responses from supporters from all over the country who related to us as their second team to follow.

In the modern social media age apparently liking a team beyond your own is considered a no-no. You have to love the team you follow and hate or despise all others, otherwise you are not a “true supporter”. I’m sorry but I can’t relate to those emotions. I can’t bring myself to actually “hate” any team. I can’t say I particularly care for many of them, and in the Premier League both Stoke and West Brom easily top my list of teams I really don’t like. And though I don’t particularly care for Tottenham either, I have a grudging admiration for some of the football that they play.

Of all the other teams in the Premier League, then if I had to pick a second team, or a team I like to see beat all the others (other than West Ham of course) then it would be Arsenal. I also have a soft spot for Newcastle, Bournemouth and Brighton. These are all for varying reasons that extend back to my youth, and are not particularly strong feelings, other than if I am watching a game on Sky or BT, I will usually want one side to beat the other. I find it hard to watch a game as a strict neutral and have no interest in the outcome. Unlike so many who seem to relish teams from the bottom half beating the big boys, I cannot join that group either. As West Ham are frequently one of the sides involved in the relegation fight these days, then I will usually want one of our “lower in the league” competitors to lose to a top team, purely for the preservation of our Premier League place.

This weekend we visit the South Coast to visit a team that I have a bit of a soft spot for. Nevertheless, although I hope they escape the drop, I also want us to give them a battering equivalent of the one that they gave us at the London Stadium (3-0) towards the end of October. That was just over three months ago, and their first away victory enabled them to move into the top half of the table, while we sat immediately above the three teams in the drop zone at the time, namely Leicester, Bournemouth and Crystal Palace. A lot can change in three months of course, and to illustrate this both Leicester and Bournemouth are now in the top half of the table (8^th and 10^th), with Palace now 13^th, just one place below ourselves. Brighton, on the other hand are now 15^th and are only one point better off than Southampton and Swansea who occupy two of the three relegation places, just above West Brom at the bottom. Ironically the three teams at the bottom now were all between 11^th and 14^th in the league at the end of October.

The battle to avoid the drop is now perhaps the most interesting part of the Premier League. At the start of the season there could have only been a maximum of six possible contenders to win it, and the elite six are as expected well clear of the rest. Manchester City already have the title sewn up so it remains to be seen which three of the chasing five will get into the coveted “top four” for the Champions League slots, and the money that it brings.

You would think that Burnley, Leicester, and possibly Everton probably have enough points in the bag already to avoid relegation, so the remaining eleven teams ranging from Bournemouth on 28 points (but only 5 clear of 18^th / 19^th) down to West Brom on 20 at the bottom are the ones who will provide the most interest in the final third of the season.

If Brighton were to repeat their 3-0 victory over us from earlier this season then they would leapfrog us, whereas if we beat them they could easily find themselves in the bottom three. Whilst all of our remaining games are important, those against the other teams in the bottom eleven are the true six-pointers, and many will set out not to lose, just as ourselves and Palace appeared to settle for a point apiece with a quarter of the game still to go on Tuesday night.

The importance of this game (as I guess all games) cannot be over-emphasised. If we can win then it would take a lot of the pressure off whilst we await the return to fitness of some of our key players. With the extent of our injury list many were surprised that we didn’t bring in more new faces in the transfer window that closed this week. In fact the word surprised is a bit of an understatement if you read any of the damning comments aimed at our board via social media sites.

One thing that disappointed me about the knee-jerk reactions was the negativity aimed at our new recruit, Jordan Hugill. Whilst I would have been more excited by the recruitment of Cairney (from Fulham) or especially Madison (from Norwich) (both midfielders) I am not averse to the club taking on players from a lower level. Many will forget that Billy Bonds, Julian Dicks, Dean Ashton, Alan Devonshire, Aaron Cresswell, and Michail Antonio were all bought from teams at a level below ourselves. I don’t know if Hugill will cut it at the top level, but from what I’ve seen on Championship highlight programmes in the last couple of seasons he is certainly worth a try. He seems to me to be a fully committed, all action, old fashioned centre forward, and I believe that he may surprise a few people. To anyone who hasn’t seen him play I would describe his playing style as “raw Dean Ashton”. It may not work, but then again we’ve bought enough players with much bigger reputations where it didn’t happen.

Recent form is never a particularly good indicator when assessing how West Ham will perform in a game of football. Brighton’s recent home form is poor with just one win in their last nine games at the AMEX. In their last 13 Premier League games Brighton have failed to score in nine of them, and have only scored 5 goals in the other four. Their entry in the “goals for” column is a lower number than any other team for the season as a whole, and they have only scored more than once in just four of their 25 games. So expect a hat full of goals from the home side then! On the other hand we have only lost one of our last ten Premier League games, so it is about time we had another defeat! I expect to see a tight game probably ending in a draw, perhaps 1-1, or even goalless. But I am hoping that we can extend our excellent recent away form in the league, and perhaps sneak a win.

What I am particularly looking forward to though, is watching Mario, Lanzini, and Arnie all playing in the same team. I don’t know how far in the future this will be, but I am expecting great things creatively when it happens. Let us hope that it is sooner rather than later.

It doesn’t seem like long ago that we last faced Bournemouth. I guess that is because it wasn’t that long ago. We faced every other team in the Premier League before we met them, but just a few weeks later here we go again. At least we are spared a third meeting in a month thanks to the fact that Wigan beat them comfortably in the FA Cup third round on Wednesday night, which means that we face a trip to the north-west in round four.

The video assistant refereeing system (VAR) has been much in the news recently after it is beginning to be trialled in some FA Cup matches. When I wrote my book, Goodbye Upton Park, Hello Stratford a couple of years ago I devoted some of the pages within it to championing the VAR as so many decisions seemed to be going against us in that final season at our old ground. If the system had been in operation we may have even finished high enough to qualify for the Champions League, but seeing our performances in the lesser European competition then perhaps it was a good thing!

But no, I am strongly in favour of a system that increases the chances of eliminating errors by officials. The system isn’t perfect and won’t rectify all their mistakes, but it will help. It seems to me in this initial trial period that those people like myself who are in favour reckon it is doing a good job so far, whereas those not in favour do not. Similarly those managers who are benefiting from the decisions are in favour, and those on the receiving end are not. Our own Karren Brady came out in her Sun column most definitely against. It would be interesting to know her reaction if we were relegated by one point this season and then think back to the end of our visit to Bournemouth.

You will remember that we had three points wrapped up in the fourth minute of added on time when Bournemouth scored an offside goal that was also handball. The VAR system would have ruled out the goal (as would any sensible referee who would have done the same after the assistant raised his flag) but inexplicably the goal stood and we are now two points worse off than we would have been.

That means we go into this game five points clear of the drop zone on 25 points, and just one ahead of today’s opponents. If there was any justice then we would be on 27 and they would be on 23. Of course those in opposition to the VAR cite as one of their reasons that poor decisions even themselves out over the course of a season. Of course they do not, but in today’s game I am looking forward to the offside goal scored with an arm by the team in claret and blue that is allowed to stand.

Are you old enough to remember Saturday May 10 1980? I remember it as if it was yesterday, not almost 38 years ago! Working as an assistant manager for a Building Society at the time, and with a less than understanding manager, I had to work on that Saturday morning in Wanstead. We closed the doors at 12.00 midday and then we had to cash up before we could leave. The tills were balanced in record time and by ten past twelve I had crossed the road to Wanstead station on the central line, and was heading off to meet fellow co-blogger Geoff at Baker Street for our visit to the twin towers of Wembley.

We were in Division Two at the time and not even close enough to be pushing for promotion. Arsenal were of course where they have always been in the top tier. We didn’t have a chance did we? But at the age of 26 I experienced West Ham’s third win of the FA Cup, a trophy that meant so much at the time, unlike in the modern era, where it is totally overshadowed for financial reasons with the need for teams to concentrate on the Premier League. It is a shame, but unfortunately a fact of life that things move on.

I was ten years old when we first won the FA Cup, beating second division Preston 3-2 in 1964. This of course led to winning a European trophy the following season when we triumphed in the European Cup Winners Cup Final again at Wembley, before the hat-trick of the World Cup at Wembley a year later.

I had to wait until I was 21 before our second FA Cup win, an unremarkable game in 1975 where we beat second division Fulham (with our very own Bobby Moore in their side). So by 1980, when we won for the third time, for West Ham to win the FA Cup it was something I could expect to experience every few years.

But of course life isn’t like that, and here I am in 2018 waiting for it to happen again. Of course we came mightily close in 2006 when we should have beaten Liverpool, and perhaps if the game had been played at Wembley rather than Cardiff then we might have done so. In my lifetime we are unbeaten at Wembley in what I would call important games like FA Cup finals, League Cup finals, Play-Off finals, league games, and league cup ties. I will conveniently ignore the Charity Shield games against Derby (1975) and Liverpool (1980) which act as a curtain raiser to each new season. That unbeaten record was continued on Thursday evening with the magnificent rearguard action in the 1-1 draw against a Tottenham team who everybody expected to beat us comfortably.

Before I finish I’ll go back to 1980. Just two weeks before the FA Cup Final, Geoff and I took our seats at Upton Park in B Block in the old West Stand with less than 20,000 others to watch a league game, which was against Shrewsbury. It was the first time I’d ever seen us play against these opponents as we had never before been in the same division. In the first meeting that season just before Christmas they had given us a 3-0 drubbing at the wonderfully named Gay Meadow Stadium, and they did the same at Upton Park, although this time we did at least have a Trevor Brooking goal as consolation to the three we conceded.

We did the double over them in our record breaking promotion season the next year and we have never played them since. Of course the FA Cup doesn’t have the romance or glamour that it had in my youth, but I would still like us to win it again one day. This season we are battling with a dozen other teams to avoid relegation, and our injuries are mounting up too, so our team today is likely to include a number of our promising youngsters who are rarely given a chance in league games. It wouldn’t be as big a shock as it was in yesteryear if we were to be eliminated from the competition by a third tier side, but as West Ham fans we have experienced it enough times in the cup competitions, and I hope it doesn’t happen today.

Perhaps we can beat Shrewsbury comfortably, then go on a winning run in the league to remove all fears of relegation, and then field a strong side in the latter rounds of the FA Cup before going on to win the trophy next May. We are entitled to dream aren’t we?

Can you imagine a less enthralling fixture to begin a new year of football at the London Stadium than a visit from West Bromwich Albion? It could be worse of course. It could have been a visit from a Baggies team managed by Tony Pulis. But unfortunately for him, although fortunately for lovers of the “beautiful game”, he became one of a number of Premier League managerial casualties in the first half of this season.

Tonight’s game is the first of a ridiculous fixture pile-up which will see us playing two Premier League games and a third round FA Cup tie in less than six days. Although those of us old enough to remember the “good old days” will remember that at this time of the year, footballers were asked to play anything up to four games in a week over the Christmas period, and even play a match on Christmas Day itself back in the 1950’s.

We go into this game as two teams occupying 18^th and 19^th positions in the Premier League with just over half the season gone. Remaining in these positions at the end of May would mean that next season we would be facing each other again in the Championship. But when you look at the league table the bottom half is very close with Huddersfield in 11^th on 24 points right down to ourselves on 18 points. The good news is that we have at least a game in hand over every other team in the league (with the exception of Tottenham), and two games in hand over the majority of the sides in the bottom half. The bad news is that the additional game in hand is at Wembley against our North London neighbours, and despite our surprising win there in the Carabao Cup, that will be a very difficult game to get something from.

For this reason a victory tonight is imperative if we want to lift ourselves out of the relegation zone and begin to climb the table. Our visitors have been in a terrible run of form since winning both of their opening games 1-0 (when they sat in third place in the table) and haven’t won a league game since with nine draws and nine defeats. But as I have written before on many occasions when we have faced a team in such despairing form, we all know what happens when they come up against West Ham! For once we need this to not be one of those times.

After our two games this week we face a run of fixtures which will almost certainly define our season. On paper at least, the next five games, away at Huddersfield, at home to Bournemouth and Palace, away at Brighton, and then at home to Watford, are all winnable fixtures. Of course there are no easy games when you are in our predicament, but if we want to avoid a real struggle in the latter stages of the season then these are games where we must hope to pick up maximum points, and at least avoid defeat.

These are then followed by visits to Liverpool and Swansea, before three home games in a row against Burnley, Manchester United and Southampton taking us to the end of March. At this stage we will have equalised our home and away games (16 of each), before facing a trickier run-in where our six games include visits to Chelsea, Arsenal and Leicester, and home games against Stoke, Manchester City and Everton. We must hope that we are not still in danger of the drop when we enter April.

There was a period in the 1960’s when there were goals galore in home matches against West Brom, and I can remember looking forward to the games then because we always seemed to beat them. The first time I remember playing them was in our cup winning season (1963-64). It was in November 1963, shortly before Kennedy was assassinated. We beat them 4-2. Geoff Hurst scored a couple. It was the first time I can remember seeing Geoff Hurst take a penalty (Johnny Byrne was our regular penalty taker at the time) and he smashed it as hard as he could to the keeper’s right. He always took penalties that way and even though the keepers knew that, they couldn’t often get near them (although Gordon Banks famously did in the League Cup semi-final a few years later!).

“Good Friday” (Easter 1965) was a famous game in our history. This was the day when Brian Dear scored five goals in a twenty minute spell either side of half time in our 6-1 trouncing of the Baggies. The following January we beat them 4-0 with Geoff Hurst again scoring twice, and then there was another win in December 1966 when we “only” beat them 3-0. In 1968 we put another four past them with a Martin Peters hat trick. This game was sandwiched between putting five past Burnley the previous week and seven past Bolton four days afterwards. In six consecutive seasons of home games against West Brom we won five and lost one, scoring 23 goals and conceding 6. Martin Peters scored six times, as did Brian Dear, with five from Geoff Hurst. No wonder I always looked forward to games against them when I was young.

In the 1969-70 season we suffered a 3-1 reverse to them. A letter in the Tottenham programme a few games later caught my eye. A Miss Shirley Tiller wrote: “I wish to express my disgust at the behaviour of a section of the crowd at the match against WBA on 23^rd August. Have these so-called “supporters”, who booed and slow handclapped, ever stopped to realise that, whilst to them, watching football is a pleasant relaxation, to the players it is their means of livelihood? Some of them do not get paid any more than people in other walks of life; we all make mistakes in our day-to-day work (no one is infallible) and yet for some reason footballers are not expected to make any! In nine games out of ten we get first class entertainment for the 5 shillings we spend (25p) Surely as supporters we should encourage them not chastise them so bitterly.”

Her letter got me thinking how times have changed. Firstly, today’s players are in a different earnings league compared to most people in other walks of life as was suggested. Secondly it didn’t cost us a lot to get in then even allowing for inflation (the programme cost one shilling that season as well), and finally, players still get booed and verbally abused but whatever happened to the slow handclap? That has totally disappeared from the game! There were other “interesting” letters in the programme, one concerning the litter dropped in the East Stand, and another complaining about the pigeons at the ground! Apparently season ticket holders were coming “under fire!” You wouldn’t see letters along those lines these days.

Our game against West Brom in February 1973 was a shocking game to watch, one of the worst I can ever remember. This was summed up neatly by David Miller of the Sunday Telegraph who wrote “This wretched display by West Bromwich – hacking, arguing and niggling throughout – will leave few of those present shedding tears at their imminent disappearance into the Second Division.” Effectively the referee added on an additional eight minutes to the second half purely to allow for time wasting, although it felt like he just wanted West Ham to get the winner that we deserved. And we did too with Pop Robson’s late goal clinching a 2-1 victory. West Brom were relegated finishing bottom that season. Personally I’d like to see both West Brom and Stoke get relegated this season purely because of their approach to football in the past few years. Of course there is a common denominator there in terms of a manager who was in charge of both of them.

I guess that tonight’s game is likely to be a tight one with both teams not wanting to lose. We are slightly odds-on to win the match, but I’d like a repeat of Good Friday 1965. You can get odds of 500-1 on a 6-1 West Ham victory. Perhaps the in-form Arnie could replicate Brian Dear’s tally of five goals? You can get 90-1 on him scoring a hat-trick. Wouldn’t that be a great way to start 2018?

West Ham haven’t played all the other teams yet (i.e. Bournemouth) and yet here we are playing the return fixture against the Geordies

Well well well. It’s the 23rd December, Santa is due tomorrow night, and here we are playing a game of football at home in the London Stadium which kicks off at 3.00 pm. This is only the second time we kick off at this traditional time in what will be our ninth home league game of the season. Of course we have already played ten times away from home so the end of this game denotes the half way point of the season. Normally (at least in recent times) this would mean that we have played every other team in the Premier League once. This time it is not the case as we have yet to face Bournemouth, but this is the return fixture against Newcastle.

I don’t believe that at any stage this season the number of home games played has equalled the number of games played away, and it will not be the case until the end of March when, after three consecutive home games in that month, we will have played 32 games split equally between home and away matches. In fact after our away game against Swansea on 3 March the home matches played will once again be three in deficit to the away ones, a situation we found ourselves in at the end of August.

The London Stadium detractors will say that this does not put us at a disadvantage, but the fact remains we have picked up 11 points from the 8 home games played to date, whereas the ten games on our travels have brought us just six points, with last weekend’s win at Stoke our first this season on another ground. Perhaps if the balance had been more equal we might have found ourselves in a healthier position in the league than we hold at the moment? But it cannot be changed now, and if we are still in a relegation fight towards the end of the season, then at least we have the consolation of six out of the final nine fixtures at home.

The 3-0 win at Stoke was another excellent performance to follow up the games at City and at home to London rivals Chelsea and Arsenal. Seven points in a week is a fine haul after our indifferent start to the season, and if we can defeat an out of form Newcastle team this weekend then the table will look even better, and hopefully we can then begin to look upwards as opposed to downwards. After they had played five games this season, losing the first two and then winning three in a row, the Geordies found themselves in an early season Champions League position of fourth. But since then they have won just one of their last thirteen games, and only picked up just six points, with nine defeats. Their poor run has brought them just one point from their last nine games, and leaves them occupying the third relegation slot. But of course we know what sometimes happens when we face a team that hasn’t won a game for so long.

Our upturn in fortunes has coincided with a change of manager and coaching staff, who must take a lot of the credit. Our players are starting to perform with the quality that we know they have, and especially in a defensive sense are looking more organised than we have seen for some time. Players like Arnie, who some are beginning to be compared to Paolo, and Arthur, are almost becoming cult figures in a short space of time. Let’s not get too carried away, but the signs are looking good.

The game at Stoke provided a controversial moment and Lanzini has been charged with diving to deceive the referee to gain a penalty. Perhaps there was an element of truth in this, and he has history, but I agree with our manager who doesn’t believe it was clear cut. Anybody who has seen Jesus of Manchester City with his outrageous dive in the Manchester derby, and also Dele Alli and Zaha on occasions this season, will surely believe that the Lanzini “dive” was not in the same league. But have any of those been charged? Frankly it is scandalous that we are being penalised when they are not. Ironically I thought that Lanzini was not having the best of times even in our recent good run, but his performance at Stoke showed him coming back to his best, and it is unfortunate that he now has to miss out for a couple of matches.

Based upon recent form, the 11/10 odds on us to beat Newcastle looks like a licence to print money. But of course betting on West Ham can be a precarious business and you never know for sure. However I am confident that we can continue our recent excellent league form and push further up the table with a comfortable victory. And now we are out of the Carabao Cup we can concentrate on the league and the FA Cup!