The View from Away – Well I guess West Ham is back

First off, apologies for a very long unintentional lay off. I missed WAY too much of summer doing other things (webcasts, podcasts, holidays, work, etc). It wasn’t until Jeremiah prodded me (in the NICEST way….he could almost be Canadian) that I had not written on West Ham in ages. Faux pas. Let’s get back on the train.

Well, for those who didn’t hear, we played Man City today. True to form, we got pasted. They ripped us a new one. They laid a licking on us (I think you get the picture). It was awful. The only redeeming thing for me is that I was on a mandatory family holiday as a way to get next weekend off to to the West Ham Way event in Vegas (where I imagine Jeremiah, John, Baz, Brawley and the rest of us will be very, very well-behaved…).

As I expected, Twitter exploded, and people have lost their minds. I’ve seen people picking fights with each other on Twitter tonight (Dave Walker getting tagged by someone he didn’t know was actually pretty hilarious). It was mother against brother, cats versus dogs, etc…

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One of the things I kind of hate about West Ham is the infighting. We (specifically in the US) sometimes really don’t get along well. Forums don’t like each other, and people get petty pretty quickly. You’ve probably got a couple of thoughts about that right now.

I’ve made the challenge to myself to stay positive this season. Man City is a great club, and yes, I’m pissed off by the loss, but I’m putting it in context. So far, they’ve scored about 20% of the goals West Ham has allowed to the opposition since we moved to Her Majesty’s Palace in East London. That’s in 6 matches. Clearly, Man City has our number, and that number typically is about 5-0.

We face Brighton next week. They shut out Watford 3 nill. That’s our test. What can the manager and players bring together? When I measure this season against last, I want to finish higher (and I think we can finish 6th still). I want us not to start with four straight losses.

I want to see better resilience. And if next week sucks, I still won’t panic. It is a long season. Game one doesn’t make or break the season.