Previous West Ham sides at 2-0 down in the blustery cauldron that is the Britannia stadium that had been bullied, battered, out-fought and out-worked would’ve meekly surrendered and either lost by a greater margin or kept the score at 2-0 in an exercise of damage limitation.
The class of 2014/15 however possess that awesome asset of goals, goals, goals…we were awful up until a bit of magic from Stewart Downing created Enner Valencia’s strike, the transformation however was almost instantaneous, the swashbuckling side that put Man City to the sword only seven days ago were back, and when Downing himself curled in the equaliser it was of no great surprise.
West Ham have now scored 19 goals in just 10 games, just ONE shy of half the amount for the entirety of the previous campaign! And it is this very goal threat that means you simply can’t count the Hammers out of any game this season.
A win against Aston Villa will put us on 20 points, half the amount typically needed for Premier League survival; however our sights are now far loftier than merely remaining in the league. Yes top four is just a mirage looming over a tantalising horizon and perhaps a little out of our reach, the Europa League however is certainly something which isn’t beyond us, we have the quality to finish in the top seven,and who amongst us wouldn’t mind a few European nights during the final season at the Boleyn?
The fact that Diafra Sakho should return for the Villa game, not to mention Mauro Zarate is fit again and that Andy Carroll is just about ready to return can only be described as an embarrassment of goal scoring riches. The days of Modibo Maiga and Mladen Petric have been banished along with the ‘Allardyce out’ hashtag.
When you consider the amount of new faces in the door at West Ham and look at where they are in the league it makes a mockery in my opinion of sides like Man United, Liverpool and Spurs who’ve all spent over 100 million respectively and have looked nowhere as dangerous, slick or dare I say it sexy as this Irons vintage.
The credit must go to Sam; he doesn’t need to hide behind clichés such as ‘we’re in transition’ instead he’s doing his chances of leading out West Ham for their first game at the Olympic Stadium the world of good. And if this is style of football that WHU are going to produce filling a 54,000 seater stadium won’t be the stumbling block many envisaged.
Can West Ham continue to smash through the Premier League’s glass ceiling? Three points against Villa will see yet another crack form.
I think Sam learned one thing on Saturday, and that being that there is no going back to the 1 striker system. The best form of defense, so we have found out this season is attack, as in hit them hard and hit them early. I understand Sam’s caution with a strong physical team like Stoke. Personally, I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t start Carlton Cole alongside Valencia, as going 2 goals down is always really tough and most teams would not have got out of that situation, so fair go to the lads and well done. We all have off days, but sometimes one can be too cautious and pay too much respect to the opposition, but yes 19 goals in just 10 games is a fair old tally at this early stage. This is a great platform to push on for European qualification with lads, so good on you to everyone.