Could West Ham profit from chaotic Premier League season?

West Ham have so far defied pre-season expectations of an early struggle, and their fans are delighted. But they’re not the only ones as the Premier League throws up shock aftershock.

Most West Ham fans would have expected us to be on something close to zero points right now, especially after the opening day loss to Newcastle. But with coronavirus impacting teams both in terms of fans and players, there have surprises all round. Everton are top of the league, Aston Villa second. Liverpool have suffered injuries that will harm their title defence and City are struggling. Could this be another 2015/16 season?

In 2015/16 West Ham were led by Slaven Bilic and Dimitri Payet at our final season at the Boleyn, and came within a few results of Champions League football as Leicester won a memorable title.

Spurs came 3rd in a two-horse race and Liverpool and Chelsea finished 8th and 10th. Now it would take a lot for it to be THAT crazy, but if any season could come close, a pandemic impacted one probably has the best chance.

Now whilst the Hammers aren’t top of the league or anything crazy, we only had two more points in 2015 after 5 games than we do now, and similar opening run. We played Newcastle, Arsenal and Leicester in both, with Wolves and Spurs in this season compared to Bournemouth and Liverpool in 2015/16. And we seem to have a belief now that hasn’t been there since that last season at the Boleyn.

After the opening day loss to Newcastle which inspired absolutely no confidence, David Moyes has introduced a new shape to the side with three centrebacks and utilised wingbacks with great effect. With that has come to some very impressive victories and a wonderful comeback against an in-form Spurs.

And that’s so so important. It means that other teams are nervous even when ahead, and you’re confident you can come back so more games are contests for longer, and that wins valuable points.

If West Ham can get out of the next two matches, against City and Liverpool, with anything more than zero points then we can consider it a success. After that, we do have a somewhat better run into the end of the year (punctuated by games against Chelsea and United, it’s never too simple) and we could build some real momentum.

With the addition of Said Benrahma, I also think we’ll have a good number of options available in attack if things get stale, as they often do at mid-table sides. If there are any breaks in the league due to covid-19, then the small squad size we have maybe a bonus. More breaks keep us fresher and a small knit squad is likely to keep higher morale.

Could this be a crazy year in terms of final league positions? Almost certainly. West Ham have a chance of mixing it up with other likely upstarts, but we need to keep this good form going.