I'm Back (again)

As tides of change swept through the fair city of Washington DC this last month and a half or so, similar occurences seem to be underway at West Ham. There's a bright sense of optimism amongst us West Ham fans at the moment, and it's almost contagious. The Zola and Clarke system has finally come to fruition with a string of good results, and a very good showing against Man United that was only undone by 97 year veteran Ryan Giggs. Note to all pundits, please stop telling me that Giggs "takes care of himself," the image has stopped me from sleeping.

But yeah, things look on the up. Carlton has been scoring and was subsequently called up to the England squad, Di Michele has been slightly more trust-worthy with the ball (although he's knackered after not having his half time siesta), Neil is on a diet and has opted for throwing pork pies at attacking players in order to put them off instead of casually eating the pies as the likes of Ronaldo flit past him, and Scott "the torso" Parker is playing his best football in years and should be floating around the fringe of the England set up.

All is well, and we're in good stead at this part of the season to
a) not get relegated
b) hopefully finish in the top half
c) finish above Spurs
and
d) have eyes on Europe through the FA Cup


The FA Cup, I think, is probably as big of a priority this year as the league. Obviously we need to secure the points to stay up, but it does look like there are at least 3 teams that are going to perform worse than us, and so I'm quite comfortable we'll all be watching MoTD next year. Our road to the final of the FA Cup however is only three games away, and we already know two of the three opposition - 'Boro and Everton - both very winnable games (in fact Di Michele should have single handedly beaten 'Boro last weekend). After that will almost definitely be one of the powerhouses - Manc U, Chelscum, or Le Arse - but as a one off game we could certainly pull it off, as we could in the cup final. It almost seems like fate to think that in two of our recent visits to the final we had to go through 'Boro in one, and Everton in the other. Here's to hope.


In other events we face Bolton this weekend which in a perfect world will see the silky passing of the West Ham players undermine the Boltoners, but will most likely end up being a rather boring affair that will cause me a lot of spelling mistakes in the post match round up - unless of course they decide to play British players, like they last did in 1989 when they won the Sherpa Van Trophy (it's all true, I swear). On the up side Wanderers, or Journeymen as they should be called, sport an excellent goal difference of -10, and so even our likely combination of Di Michele and Go Diego Go Tristan should be able to muster up at least a couple of near misses.

Our away record of late has been decent, so I'll take a 1-0 win for us from a Collisson thunder strike. Bolton will come away from this one with every single player in their squad still yet to score - or at least that's what Sky Sports thinks...

More after the game, sorry it's been a while, and COYI!!!