West Ham blogger Kwame Boakye praises Nolan and the bosses that kept faith with Big Sam
We could get used to this couldn’t we? Back to back wins, three consecutive clean sheets and 7 points from the last nine … everything all of a sudden is all roses down Green Street.
Saturday’s win over Villa was very much ‘typical West Ham’ at the moment; race into a two goal lead and then defend relatively comfortably until full time.
But what shouldn’t be forgotten is that up until the moment Big Sam’s gang declared ‘what we have we’ll hold’ they were by far the better side.
Kevin Nolan is embodying this West Ham revival with four goals in his last two games; up until the recent glut of goals Nolan had been an immense disappointment with poor performances coupled with reckless sending’s off, but in the last two games the skipper has really delivered and trebled his tally for the season.
The fact that Nolan was only taken off against Villa as a precaution came as a relief to Hammers fans, the same fans who rejoiced after his sending off at Liverpool would give the increasingly forgettable Ravel Morrison a run in the side.
We now sit on 25 points with back to back home games looming and rather tellingly the current bottom three all changed their manager midway through the season.
Fulham, Cardiff and West Brom are proving somewhat that whilst a switch in manager may see an upturn in results initially; in many cases its not a lasting solution.
Whatever Hammers fans may think of Sam Allardyce the man is steeped in experience in the Premier League and relegation scraps and the benefits of that experience are why West Ham are now looking a decent bet to stay up.
Pepe Mel, Rene Muelensteen and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer are finding out the hard way that you cannot beat experience when it comes to survival scraps in the Premier League.
Kudos must go the powers that be for sticking with Sam; I’m not so sure we’d be in this position if they’d bowed to pressure and plumped for one of those ‘stellar’ names some fans were calling for such as Glenn Hoddle or Roberto Di Matteo.
Back to back home games now loom against Norwich and Southampton; win them both and we’ll be in a fantastic position to stay up and with the psychological barrier of finally securing back to back wins off our collective back, coupled with our impressive run of three sheets on the spin, you wouldn’t bet against the Irons from securing those six precious points before we welcome back Andy Carroll.
Immense credit must go to West Ham for the way they reacted to Carroll’s ban being upheld; the players and fans rolled up their sleeves and got on with it, didn’t use it as an excuse and went out and got three points without the club’s talisman.
No court cases, no blaming of others…Sheffield United, take note.
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