Could West Ham Benefit From Matches Behind Closed Doors?

Despite the EPL temporarily confirming that matches will go ahead as planned this weekend there is still the fear of the rest of the West Ham season being played behind closed doors or not at all.

The excitement of everyone’s favorite sport is under serious threat due to Coronavirus. West Ham United, however, could benefit from playing away from the fans. I love West Ham United and have been a season ticket holder for a few years and have traveled an average of five hours every match-day to cheer them on.

I do believe it would be a travesty for the remaining games to be played behind closed doors for the sport of football, but I do think there might be some potential positives. There is a clear understanding as to why fans have become disgruntled against the current hierarchy, and the fans carrying out the protests have been professional at separating the protests and supporting the team.

This should be recognized as to how far everyone has come since that awful day against Burnley back in 2018. For now, the players and manager are the only ones that can drive the club to safety, and they can only do that by winning matches.

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Playing matches behind closed doors could work in West Ham’s favor, the players will only have to focus on the game rather than a fear of crowd unrest spilling over. It is important to remember that the other teams will not have supporters either, meaning that results should be based entirely on the quality of the football team.

Additionally, the London Stadium has only been a fortress that slightly resembled that of the Boleyn Ground on a few occasions. West Ham on paper has a fantastic team, hence why everyone predicted the club to be challenging in the top half of the table rather than in a dogfight at the bottom of the league.

Players with skills like Felipe Anderson and Pablo Fornals and players with other key attributes like Sebastien Haller and Issa Diop could come into their own. This could be potentially true with how footballers are in current times.

They don’t love the club as the fans do and at the end of the day. They are young men who could be scared of a potentially toxic atmosphere if it were to spill over again from a small minority of fans.

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All in all, everyone would prefer that the remaining Premier League fixtures would be played as planned with fans present cheering on the side. But, playing the rest of the fixtures behind closed doors might work in West Ham’s favor. Funnily enough, the Hammers have a good record when playing behind closed doors beating Castilla 5-1 the last time it had to be done in 1980.