#whucha – Under The Hammers

There is something about the start of a new season that makes football supporters believe again. No matter how miserable the previous campaign was, no matter how many times the club broke your heart, August somehow convinces you that things might finally be different. As West Ham fans, we know that feeling better than most.

After relegation, this summer has been about picking ourselves up, dusting ourselves down and convincing ourselves that the Championship is only a temporary stop on the journey back to where we belong. The expectation at West Ham has not changed and must not change. Promotion is the target and nothing less. Yet as Charlton prepare to visit the London Stadium on Saturday, there remains a nagging feeling in the back of every West Ham supporter’s mind because we know we have seen this story before.

And last weekend, at Burnley, it felt like we were watching the opening chapter all over again. The game brought back painful memories. On paper, a 2-2 draw away at Burnley is not a terrible result. Turf Moor is likely to be one of the toughest grounds in the Championship and most supporters would have accepted a point before kick-off. West Ham remain unbeaten in competitive football this season and there are certainly some positives to take from the opening weekend. But football is never played on paper.

The reality is that we found ourselves two goals in front and we should have been cruising with so little time to go. The game was there to be won. Instead, Burnley fought back and we left with a draw that felt more like a defeat than a point gained, a sinking feeling that was all too familiar. Last season, we developed an alarming habit of retreating into our shell whenever we got ahead. Rather than pushing for another goal, we tried to protect what we had. Time and again it backfired and by the end of the campaign, twenty points had been dropped from winning positions. In any division, that is catastrophic and of course in a relegation battle it proved fatal.

The most frustrating aspect was that we could all see it happening (or at least most of us!). Supporters in the stands could see it, viewers at home could see it, and opposing teams certainly could see it. But could the manager see it? Whenever we took a lead, confidence seemed to drain rather than grow. That is why the Burnley game felt so significant. A new division, new optimism and a fresh start were supposed to bring a different mentality but instead, the first league game of the campaign produced the same old anxiety. When Burnley pulled one back after Scarles’ reckless and unnecessary challenge every West Ham fan knew what was coming next. That has to change and it has to change quickly if we are to contend for promotion.

For all the frustration surrounding the Burnley result, there are still reasons for hope. Pre-season was encouraging to an extent. Our displays gave us some belief that we could recover from the trauma of relegation. We looked fitter, sharper and more united than we often appeared during the previous campaign. The League Cup victory over Portsmouth offered further encouragement despite a less than convincing performance and reminded us what winning football feels like.

Do we yet have an understanding of what the Championship demands? This is not a division where reputations matter. Nobody cares how many seasons we spent in the Premier League. Nobody is intimidated by our badge or the fact that we have sold 50,000 season tickets. Every single game is going to be a fight. As fans we understand that. Do the players and the manager? If promotion is going to happen, it will need to be earned.

What do you think about the arrivals of Joël Piroe and Arne Engels? Piroe’s signing in particular feels like an acknowledgement that West Ham need proven Championship quality if we are going to bounce straight back. Piroe’s reputation at this level is excellent. We are in the Championship now and were never going to attract players that some fans hope for. I hope he can bring us some excitement over the course of the season. For the first time in a while, recruitment appears to be focused on the realities of the division we are actually playing in rather than the one we wish we were playing in. Promotion-winning teams are built for their environment.

Engels is totally different. He is just 22 years old, an established Belgian international but hasn’t played in England. Nonetheless he was an important part of the Celtic team that won the Scottish Premiership last season and apparently has a big engine, a real box to box player, and can score. He managed 17 goals and 22 assists in 100 Celtic appearances in all competitions including Europe. Let’s hope he can create chances for Piroe who has an excellent record in front of goal in the second tier scoring 73 goals (plus 18 assists) in 179 appearances. Hopefully the arrival of both Piroe and Engels will give a boost to the team in this game and in the season as a whole.

Charlton will relish the occasion and there is no danger of them arriving lacking confidence. Their 2-1 victory over Derby County on the opening weekend showcased exactly why they could be dangerous opponents this season, despite the low expectations of bookmakers and pundits alike. Nathan Jones appears to have built a side that is organised, hardworking and completely committed to his methods.

They came from behind to win at The Valley, showing the kind of resilience West Ham supporters would love to see from our own team. Lloyd Jones and Tyreece Campbell got the goals in a result that immediately gave Charlton momentum for the new season. And let’s be honest, they would absolutely love to derail West Ham’s promotion ambitions. This is a local derby and Charlton will see this as a free hit at one of the division’s biggest clubs. We have to make sure they regret that thought the moment the whistle blows.

It’s time for West Ham to show some ruthlessness. For me this game is about proving we have learned something. In particular if we take the lead, can we stay brave and keep attacking? Can we play with the conviction of a team chasing promotion rather than the fear of a team scarred by relegation?

The crowd needs to play its part. There should be a real edge inside the London Stadium. Charlton’s supporters will make themselves heard and West Ham fans, desperate for signs that the club is moving in the right direction, will need to respond in kind in the first home league game of an important season. What we all want to see is a team that keeps pushing and refuses to retreat. The great West Ham sides of the past were never built on fear.

My head says this will be difficult. Charlton are organised, confident and arriving on the back of an opening-day victory. But my heart as always says West Ham need a performance that makes a statement at this stage of the season. Most of all, the team and the manager need to show supporters that the lessons of the past have been learned. The scars of last season will not disappear overnight, and after Burnley some of those wounds were reopened. But football always offers another chance and Saturday is that chance. At some point this club has to stop being haunted by the mistakes of the past and start writing a different story.

“Name something that is completely pointless” asks host, Les Dennis, in an episode of Family Fortune’s Always Hiding. Of one hundred people surveyed, the second most popular answer is “West Ham after their first seven Premier League games of the season.” Top answer, though, is tonight’s 2^nd round EFL cup game against Charlton Athletic – played in an empty stadium, where any pretence of winning is a distant second to damage limitation and the need to fulfil contractual obligations. In a congested and compressed season, it is a puzzle that the competition is actually going ahead.

In recent years successive of West Ham managers have, for whatever reasons, failed to treat the competition seriously – and even when we did, being on the wrong end of a lower league giant-killing was not unheard of. It is a footballing conundrum. The League Cup is surely the easiest of the three major trophies to win for the Premier League also-rans – yet many make no real effort to compete. While in the past twenty years, the names of Leicester, Blackburn, Middlesbrough, Birmingham and Swansea have all been etched onto the not so famous trophy, risk averse managers continue to consider giving it a go as a distraction from the real business of not being relegated. It’s enough to make you wonder what the point of following football is?

In a further downgrade to the League Cup’s status, this season’s winners no longer qualify for the Europa League, but will instead have to make do with the unimaginatively named third-tier Europa Conference League – an Auto Windscreens/ Sinod Cup affair designed to prevent smaller clubs and countries clogging up the more illustrious televised competitions.

This evening’s match provides the opportunity for our former tenants from south-east London to inflict an early round embarrassing defeat on the Hammers. Although newly relegated to League 1, manager and ex- Hammer, Lee Bowyer, will be confident his side can pull off an apparent upset. That no-one would be particularly surprised, or even really care, is a sad reflection of where we find ourselves. After all, there is plenty of transfer speculation and the excitement of a potential US consortium takeover to tweet about.

Tonight will see the fourth meeting between the two clubs in the 61 year history of the League Cup, an exchange in which West Ham boast a 100% success rate. For the record, these were: 3-1 in 1960 (Moore, Dick, Musgrove); 1-0 in 1976 (Alan Taylor) and 2-1 in 1980 (Cross 2). That win in 1980 came in a run that took the Hammers all the way to their last major final appearance, where they lost to Liverpool in a replay in April 1981.

Despite never having won the competition, there are two West Ham related entries in the League Cup record books. The first, a 10-0 win over Bury in 1983 which stands as the biggest ever winning margin (equalled by Liverpool v Fulham in 1986) and notable in that so impressive was the performance of the Bury centre-half (Paul Hilton) that he was subsequently signed for the Hammers by John Lyall. The second, Geoff Hurst’s career total of 50 League Cup goals which remains a competition record (shared with Ian Rush), although some of Hurst’s goals were scored after he had moved to Stoke. An extra side-note is that Rush’s first League Cup appearance for Liverpool was in that 1981 final replay, although he failed to score on that occasion.

It is quite difficult to imagine what would represent a weakened West Ham side these days – one that doesn’t include Rice, Soucek, Bowen and Antonio I suppose. Otherwise we might not be able to tell the difference. Perhaps we will be surprised, who knows? I will probably check the score in the morning paper.