Super Computer predicts seventh-place finish for West Ham
American polling site FiveThirtyEight have crunched the numbers to predict that West Ham will miss out on Europa League qualification.
They have given both West Ham and Tottenham Hotspur the same amount of chance (46 percent) to finish in the top six, but haven’t considered the importance of goal difference.
At the moment, Spurs’ goal difference is 12 better than West Ham’s – meaning that if they win both games, regardless of West Ham’s results, they will qualify for the Europa League.
This will come as a big blow to West Ham, who until a month ago looked like realistic challengers for top four, let alone the top six.
Seventh place this season will not give them Europa League football but will put them in the Conference League – the inaugural edition of the competition next season.
It still will technically be European football, but not what the fans wanted.
There is still hope
Fate is not in our hands, but it’s in Tottenham’s, and they’re known to bottle when even the slightest pressure is put on them.
It will be a disaster for Daniel Levy and the team if they don’t get Europa League at the bare minimum so will go all out chasing that sixth spot.
However, they’re up against Aston Villa and Leicester next, both fixtures that aren’t expected to be gimmes by any stretch of the imagination.
Also with the Foxes fighting for Champions League football themselves, they’ll be treating that game like a cup final.
We have to get the job done ourselves too, and have West Brom and Southampton left. Both teams have nothing to play for and there are no excuses for not picking up six points.
On fixture difficultly ratings we have a better chance than Spurs, but their goal difference already gives them a point’s advantage over us.
Interesting times ahead and we can only hope for the best.
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