United West Ham are showing the consistency to gatecrash the top six places
When you get stuffed 5-0 on the opening day of the season with a load of new recruits in the team, people tend to react by heading straight to the bookies to back you to get relegated.
Since their humbling by Manchester City, though, West Ham are unbeaten in five Premier League games, have conceded just two goals and on Sunday claimed a notable scalp in Manchester United, who they beat 2-0.
That has left the Hammers fifth in the table. But for their five-goal defeat, they would be third. This is far better than recent years. The question is: can they keep it going?
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Previously West Ham have veered between high expectations and relegation battles, and a heavy defeat might have knocked them off their stride and into a poor run.
This term, however, they are not such easy prey. They have found consistency and they seem to have solid foundations to build on.
Recruitment is always a high-risk exercise but West Ham appear to have done a good job over the summer.
The club have brought in some good young players, such as Sebastien Haller and Pablo Fornals, to complement older heads like Mark Noble, and been prepared to offload players for sensible offers, as in the case of Javier Hernandez leaving for Sevilla.
They already had a seasoned top-flight goalkeeper in Lukasz Fabianski – their player of the year last season, which I think is always a good sign.
Shaking up the established order
A lot of the credit ought to go to Manuel Pellegrini. The Chilean has been around management for so long, won the Premier League – albeit with City, but in the earlier days of their dominance – and has seen it all before.
What that means is that players have no excuse but themselves. The onus is on them to raise their game to his standards.
Another positive is that, at long last, the London Stadium feels like it has become home.
The move created an extra pressure that was hard to shake off but no one is calling it the Olympic Stadium any more.
Without any doubt, there is a chance this season for teams outside the usual Big Six to break into those European qualifying positions.
Chelsea are a team in transition, Tottenham flit in and out of games, Manchester United seem to have forgotten the basics and Arsenal, like the others, can’t put together a 90-minute performance.
Everton have aspirations of challenging those sides but they too have flattered to deceive. They have all looked naive and there are questions about whether they are hungry enough.
It is still early days, but if there is one team worth analysing for game-by-game progress at the moment then it is the Hammers.
The east Londoners have always had individuals with heart and soul but it now it feels as though it is collective. West Ham now look truly united.
They – like Leicester City, too – have shaken up the established order by finding a consistency while some bigger teams don’t know what it looks like.
And when the difficult moments come later in the campaign, it’s easier to rediscover consistency if you had it in the first place.
Main image credit: Getty