Category: Preview

An excellent victory at St Mary’s last weekend saw us move up into ninth place in the table, which if we maintained that place would equate to prize money of £24 million at the end of the season. According to reports in the media, Slaven Bilic will be offered a new contract if we finish eighth or above this season. The question I ask is – how does information such as this find its way into the media? Does somebody guess, and then the rumour spreads like a lot of fake news these days? Or does it get deliberately leaked by somebody? He may have some tactical shortcomings, but Bilic is adored by the majority of fans according to various polls, and I find it hard to believe that our board will dispense with his services provided that we don’t collapse between now and the end of the season. A top half finish is well within our grasp, and we can go some way towards pushing upwards for an eighth place finish if we can beat West Brom this weekend.

In many ways, the Baggies are the surprise team this season. The top six were very predictable, and it is no real shock to see Everton in seventh, but West Brom eighth was not one that many could see coming. But in eighth position they are, and five points clear of ninth (us) at that, so they will be working extra hard to ensure that we don’t beat them and close the gap to two. One of the best games of football I ever saw was on Good Friday in 1965. We beat West Brom 6-1 but I’ll save the details for another article in my series on favourite games. They were a top tier team throughout the 1960s like ourselves, and we often gave them a thrashing at Upton Park.

In the last 25 years the Baggies have not had a great deal of success. When the Premier League began in 1992, we missed out on being one of the teams taking part in the first season as we were in the second tier. Albion were in a worse position than ourselves as they were even lower; they were a third tier team (the equivalent of League One today). Throughout the twenty-first century they have been the archetypal yo-yo club. Promotion to the Premier League in 2001-2 was followed by relegation the following season (2002-3). They came back up as a result of a successful campaign in 2003-4, and famously avoided relegation the following season with their version of “The Great Escape” when they became the first club to be bottom of the Premier League at Christmas, but stay up, which they achieved on the final day. It didn’t last though as they went down again in 2005-6, came back up in 2007-8, were relegated in 2008-9, and then won promotion yet again in 2009-10. Now that is the definition of a yo-yo club if ever I’ve seen one.

They have retained their position in the top league since then, and this is now their seventh successive season in the Premier League. They will be delighted with how it has gone so far, and early murmurs about the Pulis style of play have evaporated as they have climbed the table with a reasonably attractive style of football (well attractive by Pulis standards, anyway). Their ten wins, six draws and just eight defeats leave them on 36 points, just short of the magical 40 that all clubs aim for, although in truth 36 is often enough (but not in 2002-3, I hear you say!). A bit like ourselves, they could be described as flat-track bullies, in that they haven’t beaten any of the seven sides above them in the table. Away from home they have won three games at Palace, Leicester and Southampton. Of course their seven home wins include beating us comfortably 4-2 in September, after being three up at half-time, and four ahead shortly afterwards as a result of some comedy defending. It certainly wasn’t Masuaku’s finest hour in a claret and blue shirt.

The weather forecast is for another cold day so I’ll be wearing my hat (yes my optimistic West Ham one) and hoping for another victory, perhaps by the odd goal in three? If we can beat them, then there is every chance that we can push them for their position in the table. If we don’t win, then with games beginning to run out this season (just 13 to go after this one), it will be harder, though not impossible, to bridge the gap.

One of several players who have featured for both West Ham and Southampton is ‘old fashioned centre forward’ Iain Dowie.  In addition to scoring one of the finest own goals ever, in a League Cup tie at Stockport, Dowie’s legacy to football is the concept of ‘bouncebackability’.  Today is a chance for the Hammers to demonstrate their aptitude for resurrection as they travel to Southampton on the back of midweek humiliation at the hands of Manchester City.

Ask most West Ham supporters and they will be adamant that the Hammers are a far bigger club than Southampton, yet in reality they are currently part of a small group of teams, along with ourselves and Everton (plus Newcastle when they come back up), who have aspirations of nicking that spare Europa League spot and enjoying the occasional jaunt into Europe.  Southampton have the appearance of a very organised and well run club with a modern compact stadium, excellent training facilities (I wonder how Jose Fonte compares them to our own Rush Green base) and a recruitment system that has shown great stability in an environment where talented players and managers have come and gone in search of what they felt were greater things.

“They have some new players and some injuries, and it will be a tough game for us and for them.  It is an important game because we are only one point above them and we want to make that gap bigger.”

– Slaven Bilic

Since experiencing severe financial difficulties and entering administration, in the wake of the Redknapp curse, the Saints have demonstrated their own bounceback proficiency and during the past five seasons they have pipped us for automatic promotion from the Championship and finished above us in three of the last four Premier League seasons.   The current manager and team have not pulled up any trees in the League this season but have still managed to make it to the League Cup final.

Head to Head

Matches between West Ham and Southampton date back to the Southern League in 1899 with a first Football League Division 2 encounter taking place in 1922.  Since then there have been a total of 95 games of which West Ham have won 35, drawn 28 and lost 32.  The record away from home in 48 matches is won 10, drawn 16 and lost 22.  West Ham have yet to win at the St Mary’s Stadium which has seen 3 defeats and 4 draws in 7 games,

The last win on the road was a 3-2 success in November 2000 with goals from Kanoute, Pearce (S) and Sinclair.

Team News

Very few of the players who turned out against Manchester City have reason to qualify as the first name on the manager’s team-sheet this afternoon.  However, with a fairly limited number of viable juggling options available to him it is likely that the manager will plump for the largely similar personnel once again.  Cheikhou Kouyate has returned from the ACON and would be straight back in, for his athleticism alone, if I was picking the team .  Reports suggest that Sam Byram may be doubtful with a hamstring injury and so it could be a return to a back three with either Kouyate or James Collins linking up with Winston Reid and Jose Fonte.  If Kouyate is selected in midfield expect the manager to do this at the expense of Pedro Obiang, who despite being our best player for most of the season will be penalised for his poor show on Wednesday.  The more reasonable decision would be to bring in Kouyate for Mark Noble who looks to have even more treacle in his boots as each week goes by.  Robert Snodgrass will surely start in place of Sofiane Feghouli.

“We know this team, they have come back well in the table lately. They are a good opponent with confidence and we have to play a strong game.”

– Claude Puel

Interesting to see what type of reception Fonte receives from his former supporters and whether he is able to help the coaching team plot Southampton’s downfall.  Fonte was quoted as saying that the players did not follow the manager’s instructions during the midweek game and hopefully he can provide some on-field leadership in that regard.

Southampton are missing leading scorer Charlie Austin and best player Djik Van Dijk and with doubts over Rodriguez and Ward-Prowse they are close to what a fromer manager might have called the ‘bare bones’.  Bertrand and Tadic always seem to play well against us and manage to exploit our generosity on the flanks.

It is improbable that we have been able to address the lack of relative fitness in our squad over the past three days but it is fingers crossed that we go into the match with some sort of game-plan that is then executed with hard work, effort and commitment.

Man in the Middle

A rare Premier League appointment today for Graham Scott from Oxfordshire.  Scott’s only previous encounter with the Hammers was the League Cup defeat at home to Aldershot in August 2011 when he sent off Callum McNaughton, playing his one and only game for West Ham.  In a total 19 games this season Scott has awarded 67 Yellow and 3 Red cards.

We move on to game twenty-four in our topsy-turvy season. We have a trip to the St Mary’s stadium on the south coast to face a Southampton side whose season has been just as inconsistent as our own. Anybody who saw them beat us convincingly 3-0 in the sixth game of the season, at which point they had a five point lead over us in the table, would be surprised that they now sit one place and one point below us in that congested area which sees Stoke in 9^th place on 29 points and Bournemouth in 14^th on 26. We are 11^th on 28 points, at a midpoint of nine points below Everton who currently sit in our finishing place last season (7^th), and nine points above the drop zone.

It is highly unlikely that we can improve enough to move upwards to finish 7^th as we did last season, and improbable that we can implode to finish in the drop zone either. So mid-table obscurity is the order of the day, and an exit from cup competitions means that we have little to play for other than pride, and to finish as high as possible to earn financial rewards that are based on finishing positions.

Realistically, based on our performances to date, our final finishing position is very likely to be somewhere between 9^th and 14^th, so the six clubs in that band, Stoke, Burnley, West Ham, Southampton, Watford and Bournemouth, separated by just three points, are in a mini-league hoping to finish at the top (i.e 9^th). These six teams can perhaps be considered to have performed the most inconsistently this season, and all six have lost more games than they have won, without being that bad to be considered relegation candidates.

The prize money for a 9^th place finish is £24 million, and drops by £2m for each position, down to £14million for finishing 14^th. The difference of £10 million is sufficient to buy you another solid Premier League footballer (such as Robert Snodgrass, for example) who will help you to retain a mid-table position the following season, but not enough to buy any players to take us to the next level.

So the games against the other five teams in my mini-league take on added significance, and we have yet to play all of them for a second time this season, and the first of these games is on Saturday. We have already met all five of them at home, so they are all away games between now and the end of the season.

Our opponents on Saturday have beaten seven teams so far, Swansea, Burnley, Everton, Middlesbrough, Bournemouth and Leicester, in addition to ourselves. By the middle of December they had only lost five times, but a very poor run since then has seen them lose five of their last six league games. Their only win in that time was a 3-0 win over Leicester in their last but one game.

Of the six aforementioned teams in my mini-league, only Burnley and Leicester are still in the FA Cup, although Southampton have performed well in the EFL Cup to reach the final where they will take on Manchester United at the end of February. It is surprising to me as to how many of them fielded weakened teams in the FA Cup competition this season. None of them were in a position to challenge for a European place, and none of them were likely to be involved in the relegation dogfight. Surely they owed it to their fans to try to win the FA Cup? Fans will remember a visit to Wembley to contest the FA Cup final for years to come, but they won’t remember the difference between finishing 9^th and 14^th in the Premier League. We can exclude ourselves of course. We put out a strong team but were still battered by a rampant Manchester City team in the third round!

So what will happen when we take on one of the other “inconsistent” teams this weekend? To be quite frank I haven’t a clue. Based on current league form since around mid-December, we have performed better in our last eight games than our opponents, winning five of them to their two victories. But for many of those we weren’t that impressive, but nonetheless they were victories. On the other hand Southampton will remember their victory at our place earlier in the season.

We were both promoted to the Premier League in 2012 and have met nine times since then. We have won three times (all at home), they have won three (including two at our place), and three have been drawn (two of them goalless). We last won on their ground in November 2000, more than sixteen years ago, when goals from Kanoute, Stuart Pearce, and Sinclair, helped us to a 3-2 victory.

The smart money (according to the bookmakers) is on a home win, with Southampton odds-on to collect three points. I hope that we can prove them wrong and win there for the first time in a long while, but realistically I predict a 1-1 draw, replicating the score in the game in April 2013, and an important point against one of the other teams in the race to finish 9^th! On that day less than four years ago, Andy Carroll scored our goal, and he is the only player in our team from that day who is likely to face the Saints on Saturday. How times change. Other players in the starting line-up that day included Jaaskelainen, Demel, Diame, Nolan, O’Brien, O’Neill, Jarvis, Tomkins and Vaz Te, all long gone. The only other starter on that day who could possibly play is James Collins, but I suspect he will be on the bench.

Thankfully the transfer window has settled safely back in its frame for another few months and attention can return in its entirety to action on the pitch, even though I suspect the ghostly tones of “We’ve got Payet” will reverberate around the cavernous stadium and in the media for several weeks to come.  It turned out to be a pragmatic window for the Hammers, rather than an exciting one, and much still rides on the continued fitness of Andy Carroll, the only remaining credible striker option in the continued and long running absence of Diafra Sakho.    I was encouraged to hear Carroll say that he was now conscious of picking his battles on the pitch and that he no longer felt the need to try to win every ball; hopefully this should serve to minimise the stresses and strains on his body.

Blah, blah, blah, Dimitri Payet, blah blah blah…..

– Slaven Bilic Press Conference

The closing of the window is unlikely to shut out all of the noise about ‘two-bob’ ‘penny-pinching’ owners but in the context of mid-table obscurity (with an outside chance of Europa League in the event of extraordinary planetary alignment) it is better to keep the ‘war chest’ safely buried until the summer, when there is better value and greater options.  The majority of supporters will not remember a making-up-the-numbers January signing when it comes to scrutinising and comparing future summer investment.

Today’s visitors are one of the few clubs where transfer budgets are meaningless and for whom the odd £50 million thrown around is simply loose change burning a hole in the pocket of a dishdasha. They were quiet this window (unless you count £27 m Gabriel Jesus who was signed in the summer but has only recently arrived) but their net spending for this season still exceeds £150 m.

I am always torn on match-days between a natural, but understated, optimism for a West Ham victory and a litany of reasons why just now is a bad time to be playing this week’s particular opposition.  The recent indifferent run by the Blues and the resultant media focus on Pep’s performance are the anxieties that will gnaw away at my confidence and create growing pre-match-tension as kick-off approaches.

Head to Head

It is a mere 3 weeks since our last encounter with City at the London Stadium when once again the head to head advantage clicked a further notch in their affluent direction.  We have won just two of the last 16 meetings between the two clubs.  In the recent FA Cup tie it was difficult to determine to what degree the final outcome was the result of City’s brilliance or the Hammer’s pitifulness.  Either way it will require one of those special ‘obscene’ all-hands-to-the-pump displays if we are to take advantage of an early opportunity for revenge.

Team News

The injured are still injured, Andre Ayew is busy scoring penalties at the African Cup of Nations and Cheikhou Kouyate continues to queue at Heathrow immigration.  According to the Physio room both Andy Carroll and Mark Noble have knocks but are expected to recover.  It is the manager’s style to keep the same team and formation until we lose a game and so, with the exception of Jose Fonte in for the injured Angelo Ogbonna, I expect to see the same line-up that started at Middlesbrough.  Personally, I would put Snodgrass straight in at the expense of Feghouli but he will most likely be introduced from the bench at two-nil down.  If I owned a hat then I would offer to eat it if either Feghouli or Calleri ever make it as regular Premier League players.  There is a story that Brian Clough once went to scout a player but left after the warm-up because he didn’t like the way he ran; well that is how I view these two, neither of whom look like top-flight footballers – not that I would compare my judgement to Cloughies – and clearly Bilic has seen something he likes about them in training.

“He’s so important, we’ve played a lot of games without him, and I’m happy he’s back.  He’s not an aggressive player. He’s tough. He’s one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. We accept the ban and don’t complain.”

– Guardiola on Fernandinho

For Manchester City, there is good and bad news.  The bad news is that Kompany is fit again, Aguero has recovered from injury, Fernandinho is available after suspension and everyone else is available.  The good news is that only 11 can be on the pitch at any one time and that one of them is likely to be Claudio Bravo.

The Man in the Middle

For the first time this season we’ve got a Friend in the shape of Kevin from Leicestershire.  A comparative stranger to West Ham games, the single coming together last season was in the historic away win at Liverpool where he erroneously sent off Mark Noble.  In his total of 21 games this term Friend has flaunted  73 Yellows and 1 Red card.

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Manchester City began the season as the bookmakers’ favourites to land the Premier League title. The arrival of Pep Guardiola, who many saw as the best manager in world football, was considered to be a master stroke, and many felt it would ensure that the title returned to the Etihad Stadium. But, despite six wins on the trot in their first six games of the season, which shortened their odds of finishing at the top, they have since been inconsistent for a team destined to win the league. On paper, those first six games did not appear to be the toughest, apart from perhaps a visit to their Manchester neighbours. But they won them all relatively comfortably, scoring eighteen goals in the process and conceding just five.

But in their next sixteen games they have suffered five defeats at the hands of Tottenham, Chelsea, Leicester, Liverpool and Everton. More worryingly perhaps, for a team who had high hopes, they have had four draws at home against Everton, Southampton, Middlesbrough and Tottenham. Had they won those four they would be sitting comfortably in second place, just four points behind the leaders, Chelsea.

But as it is, with just sixteen games of the season to go, they find themselves two points outside of the top four places, and with a fight on their hands to qualify for a Champions League place next season. Their cup performances have been more consistent, and despite being eliminated from the League Cup by their neighbours, they have progressed to the fifth round of the FA Cup where they have an away tie at Huddersfield, and to the last sixteen of the Champions League where they will face Monaco.

Of course they have already beaten us twice this season, 3-1 in the league at the end of August, and then the 5-0 thrashing in the FA Cup third round on our ground. In the league game, despite City scoring twice in the opening twenty minutes, we fought back with a goal from Antonio in the second half, and it took a goal in added-on time to finally seal the three points.

Guardiola has been criticised for his choice of goalkeeper to replace Joe Hart, and has been very touchy when interviewed on this subject by the media. Some statistics (on shot stopping) put Bravo, their keeper, near the bottom of the league of Premier League custodians, but of course the figures cannot take into account the quality of the shots that he has faced. Nevertheless the general consensus is that his performances have not been of the quality needed for a team hoping to win the title, although some blame must also be attached to their ageing defence, who have missed their captain, Kompany, for almost the whole of the season. This is one area that I hope we can exploit in the game. They have conceded 28 goals in their 22 league games, a figure that exceeds the four teams above them in the league, as well as four teams below them, including Middlesbrough who sit in sixteenth place!

Their attacking play, when it is on song, as it unfortunately was in the cup game here, is entertaining to watch, and their 43 goals scored (more away from the Etihad than at home!) is only bettered by the current top four. But their seven wins, four draws, and five defeats in their last sixteen league matches emphasises their inconsistency, and we shouldn’t go into the game fearing a repeat of the cup drubbing a few weeks ago. In fact our current league form, with five wins in our last seven league games, is far superior to their four wins in their last nine league games. On that basis, the bookmaker odds on offer, where we are quoted as around 5/1 to win the game, and City at around 2/1 on, would appear to be wide of the mark, but of course the two games where we have faced each other this season tell another story.

Nonetheless it is to be hoped that the apparent improved spirit following the removal of a certain Frenchman from the team (and now his subsequent departure), will mean that we can at least get something out of the game. With my trusty optimistic hat on I am hoping for a narrow win, perhaps 2-1, although a 2-2 draw may be a more realistic bet.

It will be interesting to see the team that our manager selects. Randolph will be in goal, and I expect a back four of Byram, Reid, Fonte and Cresswell. Kouyate has returned from the African Nations Cup, but whether he returns directly into the team is open to debate. For me, Obiang, Lanzini, Carroll and Antonio are certain starters, and he will almost certainly pick Noble. Of course new signing Snodgrass will be pushing for a place in the starting line-up as will Feghouli. Unfortunately Diafra Sakho is unlikely to be available until March, and it remains to be seen if we sign a striker on deadline day (I am writing this the day before). Bilic appears to have cooled on the prospect of signing Hogan from Brentford (I wonder if he really fancied him in the first place, perhaps hoping that Sunderland would part with Defoe?).

Now that Payet has gone for a reputed £25 million, we have money to spend, but I am uncertain as to the wisdom of doing so; perhaps we should wait until the summer now that we are virtually safe from getting involved in the scrap at the bottom end of the table? However many of our fans on social media are still desperate for a striker and a right-back. Calleri’s deflected goal will probably keep him in the squad, but he hasn’t convinced many yet (apart from the manager perhaps?), and Fletcher is perpetually on the fringe (surprisingly seemingly behind Calleri in the pecking order?).

And I’m not sure our manager could pick a right back based on his history (Antonio and Nordtveit don’t do it for me in this position). It was good to see that Martinez scored within minutes of coming on for his debut at Oxford. It was a well-taken goal, and he certainly looks a fine prospect. But then so does Reece Oxford, but he hasn’t been given a chance yet either! And I haven’t mentioned Fernandes who is another that I like.

I wonder if we will bring anyone in on deadline day tomorrow? Perhaps the long-awaited marquee signing? I won’t hold my breath.

Owners, managers and players may come and go but there are certain characteristics of following West Ham that appear eternal; excursions ‘oop’ north being rarely fruitful, complacency rather confidence flowing from an encouraging performance and any team or player on a long run of misfortune seeing it come to an end it against the Hammers. So a long trek to the frozen and inhospitable north-east, off the back of a solid win against Palace to play a team that has only scored once in their last four league games ticks all the boxes marked disappointment.

 [Andy Carroll]’s got a whiplash injury. He then trained Tuesday very hard, he was brilliant in training, but then reported some neck pain. But as I say, hopefully he will be okay. We have a few with knocks – Winston Reid has a painful one and Sam Byram has a knock on his knee, it was swollen and he missed training on Wednesday. Also Sofiane Feghouli missed training on Wednesday because of a minor problem with his Achilles. But I’m very optimistic that all of them are going to be fit for the game on Saturday.

– Slaven Bilic on injuries

Middlesbrough have been a member of the football league since 1899 and their haul of one League Cup and one Anglo-Scottish Cup makes our own trophy cabinet look cluttered by comparison. The most notable things that I can recall about Boro are: that they paid the first £1,000 transfer fee, to buy Alf Common, in 1905 (£110,000 in today’s money); that Brian Clough scored an incredible 197 goals in 213 appearances for them; that they were once relegated after having a points deduction for failing to fulfil a fixture against Blackburn Rovers; and that the most interesting game on their home soil was when North Korea beat Italy at Ayresome Park in a 1966 world cup group match. Despite their lack of success I believe most football supporters will acknowledge the excellent job done by Steve Gibson during his time as board member and chairman of the club; an associated that commenced in 1986.

The challenge for West Ham today is to show that the togetherness shown last weekend was not just a one-off reaction to the Payet palaver and can be harnessed once more against the parsimonious Teesiders.

Head to Head

West Ham’s record against Middlesbrough is one of those that reflects a mirror home versus away image. Overall we have had a few more wins while they have scored more goals; but on the whole it is very even. Our last visit to the Riverside Stadium in November 2011 ended in a 2-0 victory with a goal apiece from lethal strikers Piquionne and Cole. Mark Noble is the sole survivor from the 13 players that featured for West Ham that day.

In the last 12 league encounters there have been 5 West Ham wins, 4 draws and 3 defeats.

Team News

No new long term injuries are reported for the Hammers and the three players with knocks (Reid, Byram and Feghouli) should all be available as should Andy Carroll who had suffered an unusual whiplash injury either in scoring his memorable bicycle kick goal or celebrating it afterwards. We can but hope that common sense prevails today and that we start with Byram at right back and with Antonio just behind Carroll in a sort of 4-4-1-1 formation.  It is possible to get too hung up about formations and a good team needs to be adaptable and retain a degree of fluidity; we were close to showing that in the second half performance against Palace.

“He [Andy Carroll] is a player you always have to be careful of – but if we are just looking at him, [Michail] Antonio can score or [Sofiane] Feghouli can score or [Manuel] Lanzini can score… or anyone,”

– Aitor Karanka talking up our chances

Typically our first transfer signing of the latest window came too late to feature this afternoon. Jose Fonte had not played for Saints since the game against Everton on 2 January (in his last two games they conceded 7 goals).  In West Ham terms this means a minimum of four weeks to get match fit before picking up a serious injury in training. The Fonte signing is rather underwhelming to me for although Fonte is a decent player he is the wrong age profile for a club that is, at the same time, ambitious and prone to counting the pennies.  A possible mitigation to the transfer is the rumour that one of our centre-backs is carrying an injury that requires immediate surgery.  If that is the case then we should hope it is Ogbonna rather than Reid.

For Middlesbrough, Gaston Ramirez and Antonio Barragan are injured and Daniel Ayala is suspended but new signing Patrick Bamford is available to play.

As often happens I will allow hope to triumph over expectation and will go for a narrow West Ham win.

Man in the Middle

Martin Atkinson from West Yorkshire is the referee today. Previously this season he was in charge when we lost at home to Watford and when we won away at Palace, famously sending off Aaron Cresswell for two harsh/ incorrect yellow card offences in one minute. In 20 games this season (all competitions) he has administered 83 Yellow cards plus that single, solitary, spurious Red.

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After the euphoria of our magnificent second half performance against Palace last week, we head to the North-East to face what I believe to be one of the most uninteresting teams in the Premier League, Middlesbrough. They certainly do not seem to play in games where there are many goals, and they are the only team in the League where the average goals per game (for both sides playing) is less than 2. With just 39 goals scored by them and their opponents combined in 21 games, I guess (although I haven’t checked), that they usually feature later on Match of the Day than we do.

They have scored a paltry 17 goals in 21 games, the least in the league, with only one goal in their last four games. Southampton are the next lowest on 19. Defensively, though, they are one of the top teams in the division, having conceded only 22 goals, a figure bettered by only Tottenham, Chelsea, and Manchester United. So on past performance this season we shouldn’t expect a lot of goals in the game.

They currently sit in 16^th place in the table, just four points above the relegation zone, and will no doubt be hoping that their excellent defensive record will keep them out of the bottom three. They will certainly hope that they are clear of the drop zone as the season nears the end, as in four of their final six matches they face Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool.

In the season to date they are the draw specialists of the Premier League, having drawn eight of the 21 games (they have won four and lost nine). Their draws included a 1-1 draw in the reverse fixture at the London Stadium at the beginning of October, when a wonderful individual effort from a French international player who doesn’t want to play for us anymore rescued a point. The four teams they have beaten are their North-East neighbours, Sunderland, plus Bournemouth, Hull and Swansea. Of course we have beaten the same four teams plus Burnley and Palace (twice).

One player we need to watch out for is Middlesbrough’s leading scorer, Negredo, who is on a season-long loan from Valencia, having previously been at Manchester City in recent times. Negredo has only scored (I believe) 14 goals in all the time he has spent in England, but five of them have come against West Ham! Another one of the opposition who we know well is Stewart Downing, although he appears to have fallen out of favour in recent times. They paid a lot of money to buy Jordan Rhodes from Blackburn on transfer deadline day a year ago (the fee was undisclosed, although Blackburn had previously rejected an offer of £10 million for him), but he barely gets a look in and hasn’t scored in his rare appearances this season. On 18 January they completed the transfer of Patrick Bamford from Chelsea for £6million. When he was on loan there previously in 2014-15 he scored 19 goals in 44 appearances, so he has been bought to improve their poor scoring record. I wonder if he will be in the team?

Changing the subject, I have another statistic for those people who are interested in the effect on our results of our move to the London Stadium. So far this season we have played 11 games at home in the league and have accrued 17 points. Last season we had one of our best ever seasons in recent years, and our highest points total ever achieved in the Premier League era. So how many points do you think that we picked up at “fortress” Upton Park in the first 11 games there in that last record breaking season? Yes, you are right – 17!

Our failing this season has really come away from home. Last season we collected 16 points in our first 10 away games of the season, whereas this time around we have only picked up 8 from the same number of games. The difference in points accrued for the season to date can be accounted for solely by our away form; our home form (in terms of points picked up, if not level of performance) is identical.

The transfer window continues to let in a draught, if not any players, at the time of writing. Are we waiting on Payet’s potential exit to free up money to buy players and pay salaries within the Financial Fair Play limits? I’m afraid that the Profitability and Sustainability rules within Financial Fair Play leave me cold, and I fail to understand how they work. At first glance they appear to be totally in favour of helping big clubs get bigger, and making it virtually impossible for other clubs to close the gap. But what do I know?

I keep reading about Hogan, Snodgrass, Defoe and others but I guess we’ll have to keep on waiting until the window is about to slam shut to see if anything happens. Our position in the table is looking more comfortable now, and I hope we don’t just throw good money after short-term fixes to appease the fans who are desperate to see new players. Of course we need a right back and a goalscorer, but let’s hope that any incoming players are ones that can actually improve the team as opposed to the squad. Geoff summed up the situation well in his article Sliding Through The Transfer Window on January 18, so I’ll add no more here.

Back to the game, I would guess that there won’t be too many goals, but I am hoping for us to continue where we left off against Palace and record our third away win of the season. I’ll go for 2-1.

As I write this at 9pm on the eve of the game I note that Fonte has finally put pen to paper. No news yet re Hogan, or any other signings, and conflicting reports regarding the exit of Payet. Fonte is a surprise signing in some respects, although having seen some Southampton games, I am convinced that he is a signing that will add to the quality of the actual team, as opposed to just the squad. He is obviously not a long term acquisition, but I guess fewer and fewer players are these days. Is it me, or are our transfer dealings more protracted than those of other clubs?

He has only been gone for a season and a half, but our previous manager is back for the second time. Last season Big Sam did the Red Adair job at Sunderland, and now he has been employed in the same capacity by Palace to try to turn their season around. In between he managed England for a game, before a newspaper sting caught him out and forced him out of a role that he had coveted for his whole career.

His start has not been an auspicious one, and in their last game they lost at home to Swansea. That meant that Swansea did the double over them, winning 5-4 in an extraordinary game at the end of November, before a late goal gave them a 2-1 victory at Selhurst Park.

Now we have the chance to complete our first double of the season (we only did the double over one team in the Premier League last season – Liverpool). A first half Lanzini goal was enough to take the spoils at Palace, although the day was marred slightly by another ridiculous sending off when Cresswell was dismissed by Martin Atkinson, after picking up two yellow cards within a minute. The first was for a dive that wasn’t a dive, the second was for a foul that was barely a foul!

Palace actually started the season well and by the end of September were seven points ahead of us. As they now trail us by six points, and we haven’t had the best of seasons, it goes to show what an alarming slump they have had. Of course that resulted in the sack for another of our old managers, Alan Pardew, who once again demonstrated that he can have have a good effect at a club for a while, and then everything goes wrong. He’d done it before for us, and at Newcastle.

After picking up just one point in their opening three fixtures, three wins on the bounce with a convincing 4-1 victory at home to Stoke sandwiched between away victories in the North-East over Middlesbrough and Sunderland, left them in the top half of the table. But they have only won once since, a 3-0 victory at home to Southampton early in December. They now sit just one point and one place above the drop zone in seventeenth place.

They made three big signings in the summer with Bentecke, Townsend, and our own James Tompkins costing them around £50 million. Their net spend wasn’t so big though, as they recouped around £43 million with the sales of Bolasie, Gayle, McCarthy and Jedinak. Speaking to some Palace supporters, they are not too impressed with Tompkins, although you can’t help thinking he would have got a decent amount of playing time had he remained with us, especially after we fell into the three at the back system. He would have been ideally suited to play on the right side of that. Many fans could not understand why we let him go, but I’m not sure he is good enough to take us to the next level. But supporters often have a greater affinity with “one of our own”.

Palace is one of those fixtures where we must look for three points to cement our mid-table position and hopefully push on in the remainder of the season. The major talking point surrounding the game will be the Payet revelation that he doesn’t want to play for us anymore. I am hoping for a galvanising effect on the team as a whole, and as a result I fully expect us to win, but I feel like that for most games. Perhaps 2-1?

It is FA Cup time once more and the stage where the big teams finally enter the famous competition which started with the Extra Preliminary Round on 6 August 2016. A total of 672 ties have been played to date with another 63 to play before someone lifts the trophy at Wembley on 27th May. In total 828 teams will have featured in the competition and there can only be one winner; can the ribbons on the cup this year be claret and blue?

There were 64 teams in the hat for 3^rd draw and so it was rather unfortunate to get drawn against one of the big 4 or 5 clubs. Still it is a home tie and the Hammers have only lost one of the last 8 home FA Cup encounters and that was last season in the 6th round replay against the other team from Manchester.

This is a big game for us and big game for them, it is the FA Cup and it is big for the fans.

– Slav says the right things

The FA Cup is the only remaining chance of glory for West Ham this season following our exit from both the Europa League and EFL Cup and the continued struggles in the Premier League. It is only 5 games to the Final so anything could happen and a win today can take us a step nearer the prize. Unfortunately there are only 4 all Premier League ties in this year’s 3^rd round draw (and one of those is Hull v Swansea) and so there is no opportunity for the bigger teams to knock each other out and create a clear path to the Final.

Head to Head

The overall record against Manchester City of home turf remains a positive one although we only won one of the last 6 meetings at Upton Park. The record against City has been on a downward trend since they were adopted as a Middle Eastern plaything in 2008 and during this era we have only beaten them 3 times out of 16. West Ham have only met City three times in the FA Cup before and hold a 2 to 1 advantage in the series.

Team News

Ever since Manchester United withdrew from the 1999/2000 completion the FA Cup has lost some of its glamour and sparkle. Managers of top teams began to treat it very much as a secondary priority behind the cash-raking goal of Champion’s League qualification and began to field ‘weakened’ teams made up of squad or younger players. For some unaccountable reason managers of other Premier League teams have adopted the same tactic possibly in the hope that it deposits some big-time manager stardust onto their shoulders as well. The consequences are that it is almost impossible to predict how the teams will line-up especially during the early rounds.

The cup is special because the lower team can beat the big teams, which is why it is fascinating, I’m looking forward to it, but of course it’s a Premier League game so it will be tough. We were unlucky in the draw.

– Guardiola on the FA Cup

I am hoping that Slaven Bilic is confident enough in his ability to stay away from relegation trouble to give this one his best shot. We don’t play again for 8 days and so fatigue should not be an issue and, my perception is, that most injuries occur in training rather than in competitive games anyway. Kouyate and Ayew have now set sail for the Africa Cup of Nations while Mark Noble, Reece Oxford, Sam Byram and James Collins may be available. Someone definitely available is Sofiane Feghouli after his ludicrous Mike Dean red card was rescinded by the FA Incompetent Referee panel. If Manchester City have a weakness it is in central defence particularly if it comprises Otamendi and the massively over-hyped John Stones; for this reason I would like to see birthday boy Andy Carroll let loose on them with maybe Michail Antonio playing just behind.  I assume that Adrian will back, courtesy of the Cup rotation code, helping the Post to keep the score respectable.

Manchester City are missing Gundogan, Kompany, Sane and possibly Fernando (through injury) and Fernandinho )through suspension). It would be nice if Aguero, De Bruyne and Sterling were also given the night off (although Guardiola always took cup games seriously whilst at Bayern); not that I rate Sterling too highly in the normal course of events but he always seems to give our defenders the run around.

The Man in the Middle

A first encounter this season with young Michael Oliver from Northumberland. Oliver was in charge of two West Ham games last season; both at home against Southampton (won 2-1) and Swansea (lost 1-4). In 21 games this season Oliver has shown 70 Yellow cards and a solitary Red. Despite his prudence with red cards Oliver is one of the top penalty givers (just behind Mike Dean) with 8 awarded so far this season.

In my previous article, 11 v 11, I wrote about red cards. I mentioned that some of our recent red cards have been rescinded after the event. What I didn’t say was that of our last five red cards, 4 have been wiped off by the FA commission that adjudicates on the appeals. That is a ridiculously high percentage of games where the referee has got an important decision totally wrong.

For this BBC televised game we have Michael Oliver, who at 31 is by far the youngest referee at the top level, and in my opinion is one of the best. He doesn’t issue red cards lightly; in fact his sending off of the Bournemouth captain in the 3-3 draw against Arsenal this week was his only dismissal this season, and few argued with it. I hope I haven’t jinxed his performance with this praise, and hope that there are no dismissals in this game.

This is the first time he has officiated in one of our games this season, but Liverpool seem to like him. He has refereed four of their games this season, and they have won all four scoring 16 goals in the process! He hasn’t been our luckiest referee in the past. We’ve only won three of the eleven games when he has been in charge.

For anyone who is superstitious with dates I am happy to relate that in the past twenty years we have played five FA Cup ties on January 6, and haven’t lost any of them. In 1996, Michael Hughes and John Moncur scored in a 2-0 victory over Southend. In 2001, we knocked out Walsall 3-2 with two goals from Kanoute and one from Lampard. Fifteen years ago, in 2002, Macclesfield were safely despatched 3-0 with two goals from Jermaine Defoe (where have I come across that name lately??) and one from Joe Cole. And ten years ago in 2007, another comfortable victory against Brighton (3-0), with goals from Carlton Cole, Mullins and Mark Noble.

Two years ago in 2015, we drew 1-1 at Everton, before drawing 2-2 in the replay at Upton Park which was decided 9-8 on penalties, with the winning kick being scored by Adrian, famously throwing off his gloves before blasting home the decisive penalty. Of course that is not the only goal Adrian scored at Upton Park; many will remember the great fun of the Mark Noble testimonial game last season, when Adrian ran the length of the pitch (ably minded by Pedro Obiang) to score past David James.

I haven’t gone back beyond 20 years when looking at FA Cup ties, because before then we did have some ignominious defeats on January 6, being knocked out by Torquay and Plymouth, and drawing against Wrexham before losing in a second replay (no penalty shoot outs in the distant past). But recent history is good.

We seem to be drawn against some teams frequently in the FA Cup, but Manchester City is not one of them. We have only met them three times in the competition before this season. In the fourth round in 1998 we won 2-1 at Maine Road with goals from Berkovich and (ex-City player) Steve Lomas. In 2006 we were drawn away to them in the sixth round, and two Dean Ashton goals helped to secure a 2-1 victory on our way to the final. In 2008, we met them in the third round at Upton Park, drawing 0-0, before losing the replay eleven days later to the only goal of the game.

The bookmakers are quoting odds of 4/6 for City to win this game, a ridiculously short price considering their recent form, and the lack of knowledge regarding the strength of the team they will put out. It’s hard to predict who Bilic will select as well, but I believe he will ensure we have a strong side out, especially as our next league game (at home to Palace) is more than a week away. Of course we haven’t pulled up many trees either this season, but as always I am confident of a victory, and wearing my optimistic hat once again, predict 4-1.

What are the chances? The bookmakers will give you around 125/1! Enjoy the game.