Well what a week it was – from doom and gloom leading up to the Stoke game to pure feel good factor after the Spurs game!!!After the much improved performance against Chelsea, despite losing 3-1, many Hammers fans were praying for a good turn in fortunes. In fact West Ham Manager Avram took this a step further by taking the day off for the Stoke game and praying for 25 hours. Whether it was this or his team tactics that have changed our fortunes we will never know – but one thing is for sure... they have certainly changed!!
Against a tough tackling Stoke we battled well and it seemed, for the first time in a long time, that we were starting to play as a team as we run out with a deserved draw and an even more deserved first point on the table.
From there we had a tricky mid-week away tie against Sunderland. Now at this point the West Ham of last year would almost definitely have slipped up – but no... another great team performance, a 2-1 away win and we’re into the last 16 of the cardboard cup!!
So with heads held high we take on our old enemy Spurs and it seemed like a great time to be playing them. Injuries in defence and one eye on the mid-week Champions league game – could we scrape another point from this one. Well we went beyond that against a very good Tottenham team who we played off the park for 80% of the match. Ok it could have been different it is wasn’t for the return to form of the mighty Robert Green who pulled off 2 or 3 world class saves. But, hand on heart, that was about all Spurs could throw at us and we really should have put the game out of their reach by half time – that’s how dominant we were.
So now we look ahead to Fulham this coming Saturday and a game that we should win comfortably if we play to the same standard and tempo as we did against Spurs. Fulham are quite a negative team, but they can also be quite effective, so I hope we go at them straight away with a few hard tackles and a fast tempo to let them know we mean business. I think the West Ham fans are going to be looking forward to this and with tickets almost sold out I am expecting them to bring the house down at Upton Park.
We must respect Fulham, but we must also believe, quite rightly, that we are the better team.
I wouldn’t make any changes from the team that won against Spurs – consistency is everything in football... if aint broke don’t fix it! However, if Hitz is fit then it would be nice to see him come on after 60 mins or so.
As for Piq and Vic (love that from someone on the WHTID forum) – I think this is a great striking partnership and may also wake Cole up to the fact that his place isn’t guaranteed and we expect goals from him.
My prediction is 3-1 to West Ham with "Piq & Viq" and Dyer finding the net!!! COYI
I hope to have the game live on http://www.hammerstv.com/ this Saturday and don’t forget that you can chat to other Hammers fans from around the world in the new Hammers chat room.
