The final months of this season will be very interesting for West Ham United and the rest of the relegation battling pack. Even Norwich City at the foot of the Premier League could still make a great escape, despite being seven points from safety, and there will certainly be twists and turns.
For the Hammers, there are 13 games left between now and the end of the season, one more than 17th placed Aston Villa and with a win in that game in hand they’ll be out of the bottom three. However, that game is away at The Etihad, and after that clash, the next one for the Irons is away at Anfield.
The fear for the Irons will be that they get left a few points adrift of safety after they get through this rough run of fixtures that has them facing Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham and Wolves in their next seven games, but instead of always having an eye on the table, the Hamers need to have an end goal in mind.
Not an end goal as vague as just survival, but a points tally that they want to achieve. David Moyes can forget about getting results from six of his next seven games, but the Hammers can certainly plan to get points from home ties against Southampton, Burnley, Watford and Aston Villa at home, as well as away trips to Norwich and Newcastle.
Those six games could yield a massive 18 points for the Irons, yet if they take just 12 from those clashes and win no other points this season then they’d end the campaign on 36 points, a tally that has been enough for survival in four of the last five Premier League seasons.
Where will our next win come from?
Liverpool
Southampton
Arsenal/Wolves/Tottenham/Chelsea
Newcastle/Burnley/Norwich
With that in mind, and the fact that Moyes may be able to win the odd point from one of their tougher games, the path to staying up is certainly there and it’s more than doable, it’s just about planning where the points will come from and then making it happen.
In my opinion I don’t think that West Ham will accumulate enough points to stay up ? they give too many points away from winning positions and concede far too many sloppy goals from schoolboy defending , for me that is a recipe for relegation. I have supported West Ham for over 50 years and it really breaks my heart to see the club in such a mess that it is now. I know that I will sound a bit old fashioned but things have not changed for the better with the move to Stratford and also the board of directors are a complete joke ! just business people with no thought or concern for the fans paying exorbitant prices to watch a poor team in an athletics stadium where you need binoculars to see what is happening on the pitch. Bobby Moore, Martin Peters, Ron Greenwood, John Lyall etc would be turning in their graves to see West Ham United in such a shambles.