A season-long relegation battle has been confirmed for West Ham as a huge gap opens up in this divided Premier League.
Wednesday night’s disappointing 2-2 draw at Leeds was West Ham’s first point in six games.
But the Hammers were only kept out of the relegation zone by Danny Ings’ late equaliser for Aston Villa against Wolves.
Less than two weeks ago David Moyes declared that his West Ham team were still aiming to compete for the European places (WHUTV).
The reality is now very different indeed.
Ex West Ham boss Sam Allardyce was a manager who delved deep into statistics as he plotted his aims and goals for a season.
He used to break the season down into eight-game blocks and would often point out that – on average – it takes that number of matches to move up (or down) a certain number of places in the table and consolidate there.
The general theory was it takes eight games to close a six-point gap once you get to the halfway stage of the season.
So a season-long relegation battle has been confirmed for West Ham as a huge gap opens up in this divided Premier League.
West Ham, down in 17th place on a pathetic 15 points, are a full 10 points off Chelsea in 10th and the Blues have two games in hand.
The gap to ninth-placed Brentford is 11 points. So unless Moyes pulls off a miracle in the second half of the season, West Ham are in this dogfight with what looks like seven other teams to avoid being the three that are relegated come May.
West Ham are below the threshold of a point per game which is considered the base line to survive in a 38-game Premier League season.
If the Hammers produced Champions League form (two points per game) between now and the end of the season they would amass around 55 points in total. But that seems highly unlikely on the evidence of the first 18 games.
So the very best West Ham can hope for is a midtable finish between 10th and 14th.
At least the objective is now clear in everyone’s minds at West Ham.
The goal now has to be to keep themselves near the top of that group of eight that has formed at the bottom of the table in order to alleviate the pressure so that the Hammers can attack the Europa Conference League last 16 when that rolls around in March.
That competition could save West Ham’s season by delivering a first major trophy for 43 years and sealing qualification for the Europa League next term.
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