Stop me if you’ve heard this one before

Well the ‘turning point’ of our season didn’t last very long, did it?

From the elation at the sorely missed resilience and team work that resulted in the win over Cardiff, it was back to what seems to be a routine loss against Newcastle on Saturday, where let’s be honest; as soon as Yohan Cabaye put Newcastle ahead there was only ever going to be one outcome. Or at least that’s how it feels for both us the fans and, I suspect, a majority of our players.

At the moment the team seem to demonstrate all the qualities that were the signature of the dark days under Avram Grant; a frail defence, unwillingness to want the ball and a complete lack of killer instinct, but most of all we seem to be resigned to the inevitability of defeat as soon as the first goal goes against us. Of the four league games we’ve won this season we’ve not once come from behind. (Admittedly we did manage to do that against Tottenham in the Carling Cup, but let’s not forget the winner was scored by Maiga, so all round that was a bit of a ‘freak’ result.)

There can’t be one person now who doesn’t accept we’re in a relegation dogfight (and that’s coming from a set of fans that Allardyce himself has dubbed as being ‘deluded’ in the past). David Gold and David Sullivan have shown a resilient and stubborn loyalty in backing Allardyce, which in the modern era of the managerial revolving door, on some level, has to be commended.

But deep down, even they must be worried that history is repeating itself and they are dogmatically backing a manager that, injury’s, bad luck, indiscipline and not taking our chances aside (how many times have we heard one of those lines trotted out at a post press match conference this season?) is sleepwalking off a cliff into a world of Huddersfield, Bournemouth and Millwall. No disrespect to those clubs (obviously apart from Millwall) but that’s not where any West Ham fan wants the club to be.

Both Gold and Sullivan have gone on record as saying they made a mistake by backing Avram, yet from his first 22 league games we had 20 points; two better off than we are now! No matter how many injuries your squad has or how much bad luck in games, no West Ham manager should be statistically worse than Grant. (And even in his defence, at least he took the cups seriously and managed back to back Premier League wins, all this whilst still going down as 20th!)

I think a majority of us were pinning our hopes on a decent January transfer window to inject some much-needed, fresh impetus into the side. We had been promised that signings were already lined up and good to come in the first week of January ( or at least ASAP). However we now find ourselves two-thirds through the month with only a League One defender who’s been relegated three consecutive times as well as having off field problems with alcohol, the only addition to the squad (oh and we extended Carlton Coles contract, hold the fanfare) but this won’t be nearly enough to drag ourselves out of the mess we find ourselves in.



February could be make or break for Allardyce at West Ham United


Of course the other great white hope is a Mr A Carroll who is given the unenviable task of being asked to perform some sort of Carlos Tevez ‘great escape’ act, which isn’t realistic because Carroll unlike Tevez, will be forced to play upfront alone in a 4-5-1 and will be expected to hold the ball up and bring others into play as well as score the vital goals the team needs. Now I’m not disputing he’s more adept at doing this than any of our other forwards, but the phrase ‘all our eggs in one basket’, which has been mentioned in connection with West Ham as much as ‘extensive injury list’ this season, couldn’t be more accurate.

Which leads me onto the big question; should we sack Sam? Would a Malky Mackay, Slaven Bilic or Steve Clarke really do any worse?

I don’t think we’ll ever find out, as our chairmen will do what they’ve done before and stick by Sam. Whether that’s right or wrong, only time will tell. One thing's for sure though, we need to get right behind the team as looking at the fixtures in February, it’s a crucial month with very winnable home matches. Hopefully Gold and Sullivan won’t declare - like they did the home fixture against Wigan in November 2010 - that those games will be ‘save our season’ as that would be ridiculous.

The reality is that from now on, every game is ‘save our season’.

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