Kirk Blows writes for you each week

There’s a funny moment in spoof heavy metal movie This Is Spinal Tap when the singer claims that one of their support acts was so bad that the audience was still booing them while his own band were on stage.

Maybe the West Ham manager and players should adopt a similar mentality, being in denial of their own failings and misguidedly believing that any abuse from the crowd is actually aimed at somebody else.

Plenty has been said over the past week about Hammers fans jeering their team off at Upton Park after scraping their way to a 2-1 win against a 10-man Hull side that were dominant at times.

Boss Sam Allardyce, managing director Karren Brady, certain other Premier League managers and members of the national media have insisted that the supporters were wrong to boo their own team, especially after a vital victory.

But few people, if any, have actually applauded the paying public for recognising something for what it is, rather than allowing themselves to be gullibly taken in simply by the value of (an admittedly vital) three points.

Football fans are always being told that they are fickle, but how naive would they be if they simply cheered when their team won and jeered when they lost, as if victory is the only criteria to be used when judging a performance?

Allardyce insisted he’d never been in a place where he’d “won and got booed”, but his bewilderment simply proves that the penny has yet to drop in terms of what the West Ham fans expect.

Tradition demands that they be entertained and they can’t pretend that tripe tastes like caviar just because it’s served up to them.

The questions going forward are how recent events have affected Big Sam’s relationship with the fans and what tensions could appear at board level as a result.

You can expect the Hammers hierarchy to publicly support Allardyce, but what might be discussed in private is another matter.

The expression on co-chairman David Sullivan’s face during the Hull game suggested he didn’t like what his eyes were telling him.

He knows that Premier League safety is the priority – especially ahead of the move to the Olympic Stadium in 2016 – but he must also be aware that, at some stage, the quality of the product has to improve.

? Hammer Blows, by Kirk Blows, is available now from Amazon and pitchpublishing.co.uk