We're almost safe!

Old habits are hard to kick and sometimes I find myself looking at that shaded area at the bottom of the league. One neglected aspect of the draw at Southampton is that it makes West Ham almost safe on 38 points. On average a Premier League team needs 37 points to survive, though in the relegation season of 2001-02 West Ham went down with 42 points, a Premier League record. So in theory we can lose all our 13 remaining games and stay up, not that that's a very good idea. Though West Ham did try it once before when we had a terrible end of season run after reaching the Cup Winners' Cup Final under John Lyall in 1975-76, failing to win any of the final 16 games and getting thrashed 6-1 at Arsenal in the process. All this having been top of the league after four games and being unbeaten for the first nine! But with the new TV deal survival this season had to be the first priority; having achieved that after 23 games we are now in a position to give a Europa League position a real go.