Our West Ham blogger sees nothing but Premier League purgatory for the rest of the season

Newham Recorder: West Bromwich Albion's Brown Ideye celebrates scoring their first goal of the game during the FA Cup Fifth Round match at The Hawthorns, Birmingham.West Bromwich Albion's Brown Ideye celebrates scoring their first goal of the game during the FA Cup Fifth Round match at The Hawthorns, Birmingham. (Image: PA Wire/Press Association Images)

It was without doubt the most important game of the season thus far and we undoubtedly put in our worst performance of the season thus far.

If, come the summer, Sam Allardyce finds himself moving on to pastures new; he may well look back to this shambolic display at Hawthorns as the catalyst for change.

With our lingering hopes of being involved in the scrap for fourth all but over, as we sit seven points off the coveted final Champions League spot with Spurs, Arsenal and Chelsea to play in 3 of our next 4 games; our cup run took on added significance and whilst it looked a tricky tie, it looked winnable.

The comprehensive battering at the hands of Albion was unbelievably shocking; this season no-one has really battered us, we’ve only suffered seven defeats in 25 league games; unheard of for West Ham in the Premier League era. But everything about the performance at the Hawthorns was woeful; we lost virtually every tackle, every second ball and we didn’t have our first shot on target until well into the second half.

Newham Recorder: West Ham manager Sam Allardyce looks dejected against West Brom (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)West Ham manager Sam Allardyce looks dejected against West Brom (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images) (Image: 2015 Getty Images)

Whilst we struggled, laboured and toiled to create anything of note, West Brom dominated proceedings far too easily considering what was at stake. Twelve points separate us in the league, but you could be forgiven for thinking that the points difference was in the Baggies favour based on that performance.

It’s really difficult to accept that after the Everton epic and Adrian’s heroics we’ve ended up getting knocked out in such a meek fashion.

The old footballing cliché now comes into effect as we attempt to ‘concentrate on the league’ however we’re not going to go down and it will be incredibly difficult to finish any higher than eighth now that Spurs and Liverpool have finally got their collective acts together (about time considering the dosh they’ve spent) so we’re sort of left in Premier League purgatory for the last thirteen games.

Our form has undeniably dipped in the second half of the season; wins have been harder to come by and leads have been increasingly difficult to hang on to.

However it is worth remembering as Aston Villa make quite possibly the most desperate managerial appointment in recent memory how far we’ve come...isn’t it a relief to not be involved in all that malarkey?

The fashion in which we now end the season will surely be crucial as decisions are made with regards to Big Sam’s future. The remit at the start of the season was better football and a top 10 finish, both of those objectives are on course to be met, however the capitulation at the Hawthorns may well have moved the goal posts.