WHZ View: Next five matches are crucial for West Ham
After 24 matches played this season, West Ham are sat in the Premier League’s top five with a massive 42 points on the board.
We’re currently above the likes of Liverpool, Everton, Tottenham and Arsenal and level on points with Chelsea. David Moyes and his backroom staff have done a remarkable job of turning us into a winning club with a positive mentality.
The Hammers are the surprise packages of the 2020/21 campaign. It’s nearly the end of February and we’re still in the mix for the European places.
It begs the question, can we actually qualify for Europe? If we’re to come anywhere near, then the next five games are absolutely massive. Three of those fixtures are at home, whilst we have two trips to Manchester in between.
Who are we facing?
On Sunday we play host to Tottenham at the London Stadium. When we met in October in the reverse fixture, we pulled off one of the shocks of the season. The Hammers struck three times with under 10 minutes remaining, to level the tie 3-3.
The belief we showed in that game has stuck with us all season. It was a real turning point for the players under Moyes, we’ve pushed on massively since then.
We should be full of confidence going into this one. Spurs have lost four of their last five league games, and they play tonight in Budapest in the Europa League knockout phases. Hopefully we can turn up and get a result, a win would open up a nine-point gap between us and Mourinho’s men.
We travel to the Etihad Stadium the weekend after to face the runaway leaders in the Premier League. Manchester City are on fire at the moment, winning 16 matches on the bounce.
Moyes’ side can take confidence from the meeting earlier in the season, in which we held City to a 1-1 draw. We had led in the game through a Michail Antonio goal, he should be back in the side by the time we face off.
In fairness, City are pretty much a free hit for anyone this season. They’re simply on another level, currently 10 points clear at the top. They to play midweek in the Champions League ahead of our match, but it’s hardly an advantage given their squad depth.
Leeds United await after that. It’ll be the first time we’ve hosted the Whites in the top-flight since the 2002/03 season, nearly 20 years ago.
We won at Elland Road earlier in the season, as Leeds were unable to handle out set-pieces. This is a game we simply have to be targeting to win.
Bielsa’s men have had a really strong first season back in the Premier League, pushing for a top ten finish. Another tough game.
We travel back to Manchester to face the Red Devils after. This will be a tricky one, without the energy of Jesse Lingard we could come unstuck up top. Fingers crossed Antonio comes through the next few weeks in good knick.
United are definitely beatable, though. They were unable to defeat relegation strugglers Sheffield United or West Brom over the past few weeks, and didn’t play overly well when they defeated us in the FA Cup.
The end of our challenging run will come at home to Arsenal. Mikel Arteta’s side have looked a lot better in recent weeks, with Aubameyang finally deciding to turn up in late February.
His hat-trick against Leeds suddenly makes them look a different beast altogether. Moyes will be our for revenge in this tie. We were unfortunate to lose in our second game of the season at the Emirates after being the better side on the night.
With 15 points up for grabs overall, anything between seven to ten could be seen as very successful. After all, there’s no such thing as an easy game in the Premier League.
The next five fixtures will shape our season, if we come through them, we could maybe start thinking about Europe next year.
In other West Ham news, Aaron Cresswell is proving all of his doubters wrong this season.