A bunch of bottlers?

So it happened again…once again West Ham United had the opportunity to go level on points with Southampton (could’ve even have gone top with a win by a three goal margin) and yet again we failed to capitalise on such an opportunity. So far by my reckoning we’ve had FIVE chances to head the Football League this season and every last one of those opportunities has been squandered.

Is this current Hammers side a bunch of bottlers? Frightened of taking that next step? Scared to puff out its collective chest and declare to the Championship ‘We are top dogs and we shall not be moved.’

Poor discipline clearly cost us at Reading but the result was indicative of how we’ve responded when presented with a genuine opportunity to dethrone Southampton. So what is the problem? Could it simply be the injuries to key personnel such as Baldock and Taylor that has seen us in recent weeks drop points in the pursuit of top spot? Or are these dropped points symptomatic of a bottling culture?

We had the chance to go top at Millwall…we only got a draw, we had the chance to go top at St Mary’s and we lost. A pattern seems to be emerging and it’s a dangerous one. The gap that separated us from the blood-thirsty play-off pack has been whittled down from a healthy 6 to just 2 points all within the space of the last couple of weeks.

Saturday’s game against Barnsley is now simply huge, we’re in danger of dropping out of those coveted automatic promotion spots, for once we need to block out what’s going on with Southampton and focus completely on getting those much needed three points. Perhaps in general we’ve been focusing too much on the fortunes of Nigel Adkins’ men.

We’ve hit a crucial stage of the season with five games played during the month of December; we’ve got off to a terrible start with back to back defeats. (If we’d have won both fixtures we’d currently be top and three points clear) I’d like to think that once we get a few players back from the treatment table (namely the aforementioned Taylor and Baldock) a return to the sort of form that saw us win four on the spin won’t be too far away.

I think at the moment we need to stop worrying about what’s going on above us and beneath us and just focus solely on our own fixtures.

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