West Ham United have nine games to realise their Champions League dream.
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David Moyes’s boys are on course for their best season in 35 years.
West Ham are fifth in the Premier League table going into the last nine games.
Crucially the Hammers are just two points off fourth-placed Chelsea.
The fight for the Champions League looks increasingly like a five-way battle for the last spot between West Ham, Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham and Everton.
What West Ham need to do to make Champions League dream come true
And between 65 and 68 points will likely be needed to secure it.
So do West Ham have what it takes to get the 16-19 points that may be required?
Hammers News has looked back at the last 25 seasons to analyse the kind of points needed to make the top four over the course of a 38-game Premier League season.
The highest number of points needed to make the top four in the last 25 years was 1995/96 when it took a mammoth 79.
And the lowest was just 57 points in the 2003/4 campaign – which will definitely not be the case this season.
The number of points needed has only dipped below 60 twice in the last 25 years.
But the biggest indicator of a more precise points total that may be required comes from the average over that time. That works out (rounded up) at 68 points.
History says Hammers need another 16-19 points to make top four
That would be enough to have made the top four in 15 of the last 25 seasons.
The closest West Ham have ever got to that in the Premier League era was just five years ago in the emotional Farewell Boleyn campaign.
West Ham finished seventh that season on 62 points – their highest ever Premier League points total – just four shy of the Champions League spots.
Can they go one better this time around?
Let’s take a look at West Ham’s nine remaining games and apply some realistic predictions.
West Ham run in predicted – do they have what it takes?
Wolves away – WIN
Leicester home – DRAW
Newcastle away – WIN
Chelsea home – LOSE
Burnley away – DRAW
Everton home – DRAW
Brighton away – WIN
West Brom away – WIN
Southampton home – WIN
Total = 18 points
If the optimistic predictions above pan out then West Ham would end up on 67 points.
Moyes’s side would be desperately unlucky not to make fourth spot with that total.
But even if they fall short they should – given their run-in – have enough to make the top six and a likely Europa League spot.
That would represent huge progress for West Ham and a competition they can really attack.
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