West Ham finally enjoying February

Article by e-West Ham Correspondent Martin Sancto

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So, where do we start with West Ham's latest U-turn in performances that has led to 4 clean sheets and 10 points to accompany them? The month of January brought some very uncomfortable and cringe-worthy score lines for us Hammers fans, which I am sure we are all so happy to see the back of.

It seemed that the dreaded West Ham curse of injuries really did prove to be the root cause of that serious blip, because up until that awful run of results we were and still are the team to beat for clean sheets.

Ok, we weren’t exactly climbing the table with wins due to the injury of the towering Andy Carroll, but we were holding off teams from taking maximum points from the Claret and Blue Army. It seemed that the defence that was keeping us from sitting further down the table were, at some point or another, all injured at the same time.

Then, if that was not bad enough, our captain Kevin Nolan picked up two red cards in as many weeks, and with James Tomkins picking up a red card on his return from injury, things just seemed to be going from bad to worse.

Then finally, we started to get injured players trickling back bit by bit. We get big Andy Carroll back, only to lose him for 3 matches due to a straight red card from referee Howard Webb for a dubious lash out on Swansea City’s Chico Flores. So was Sam Alladyce going to take the flack for all of these shocking results and lack of control of players on field behaviour and be the next for the axe?

It would seem not, Mr Gold and Mr Sullivan came out publicly and backed Sam and even made an announcement on the official West Ham website to reinforce that backing, and this announcement received mixed feelings from West Ham fans who were split between what seemed to be 70% wanting Sam out and 30% wanting him left at the helm.

I must admit that after crying in my beer watching the Hammers being crushed by Nottingham Forest and twice by Manchester City, I had moved from wanting Sam to stay to wanting him so far away from our dug out that I would of gladly welcomed back Avram Grant! I did quickly realise that this was the grief acting on my behalf and I took a firm grip on reality again.

As for publicly backing Sam, our owners were actively making strides to bolster our much depleted squad with new recruits, and as we now know they did some very good business. Again, some mixed feelings rippling through us West Ham United fans; we re-signed Carlton Cole on a short term deal which proved fairly successful and earned him an 18 month renewed contract. Roger Johnson a centre back from league one outfit Wolverhampton Wanderers (loan), Marco Borriello a centre forward from AS Roma (loan), Antonio Nocerino a central midfielder from AC Milan (loan), Abdul Razak a centre midfielder from Anzhi Makhachkala (loan) and finally Pablo Armero a left back from SSC Napoli also on loan.

On deadline day many Sky Sports ex footballer guests and pundits were claiming that the amount of loans West Ham had brought in showed desperation on our part, what with the position we found ourselves in. Personally I think that could not be further from the truth. Never the less, between the returning players, Andy Carroll back in training, new recruits and a much needed talking to from Sam Alladyce to Kevin Nolan, we have put in some good shifts and put ourselves firmly in 11th position.

Now it’s that time of year again, the whole squad have been taken back to Dubai by Big Sam for some well-earned warm weather training. As much as I think it is a good idea that they do get out of this seriously awful weather, I just hope the extended break and the lovely settings in Dubai can help continue the good run of form that we have found since the start of February and get a result at against Southampton on the 22nd of this month.

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