Ray Parlour sees cause for optimism with West Ham
Although West Ham United ultimately fell 3-2 to the Liverpool juggernaut on Monday night, they produced a much better performance than expected.
There were understandable fears that the Hammers would get blown out of the water by the Premier League champions-in-waiting.
However, David Moyes got a tune out of his players, as Issa Diop and Pablo Fornals got on the scoresheet to worry the Reds at Anfield.
It was a shame that they couldn’t hold on for a point, but the display will have given the supporters some cause for optimism moving forward.
That’s certainly the point of view of former Premier League winner Ray Parlour, anyway.
“I would be very optimistic if I was a West Ham fan moving forwards, because at least the players really responded and didn’t let it affect them,” he said on talkSPORT.
“If you’d said to me, coming into March, that West Ham would be in the bottom three, I’d have thought you were mad.
“We always say ‘how many points are going to keep you up in the Premier League?’ I would say four more wins probably, 36 points.”
Is Parlour right to be optimistic?
It’s hard to say. He’s reacting to one decent performance, of course, but there was definitely something to get excited about on Monday.
The players showed some fight, although they did so less than a week after they utterly failed to do so against Manchester City.
So those are two performances that were polar opposites, yet they came away from both with nothing.
They won’t be judged on games against City and Liverpool though, of course, and so the hard work very much starts now.
In other West Ham news, beIN SPORTS pundit Andy Gray has revealed why the Hammers have struggled this campaign.