As often heard, every club has its rough patch and luckily for us – or unfortunately, depending on your stance on the matter – Sam Allardyce’s West Ham had theirs as we were having ours. It masked a shoddy spell, at least on the table as we continued to sit on the summit: however, had West Ham’s ship not rocked, I can’t help but thinking it would’ve forced us, or at least encouraged us, to try and steady the ship before it started to sink.
Now, don’t be mistaken, I don’t think we’re sinking yet – that would be a display of hypochondria – however, I do feel that a two-game period is upon us where we have to pick up maximum points to calm a bucking horse. We’d been majestically galloping through the months, sitting pretty atop of the table all along: yet, the road’s become rather rocky and the horse’s hooves are showing signs of deterioration. The new shoes have been purchased and fitted in Billy Sharp, among the other January signings: however, they need to be broken into and the horse needs to proudly strut once more.
Okay, enough with the equestrian metaphors: I feel like I might stirrup mild bemusement.
West Ham have seemingly recaptured their early season form, along with assembling an army of strikers in the process, and are picking up the points in a steady and high-returning manner once more: Southampton haven’t. We slumped together – whilst Middlesbrough continued to remain draw specialists at home stunting their potential – but we haven’t recovered together and with only two wins in our past ten games, we face a doubleheader of Claret and Blue.
Burnley travel to St. Mary’s on Saturday and then Southampton, hopefully in what can still be considered as a top two clash, like it did back at St. Mary’s where a Jos Hooiveld header was enough to snatch all three points, are hosted by current league leaders West Ham on Tuesday night.
A chance is presenting itself to Southampton: a chance to quickly mount the horse of success once more and canter off into the sunshine before Sam Allardyce can spit out his gum, stamp it into the ground as if it were a cigarette butt and make chase for us with a trailer of endless strikers in tow.
As is the nature of the Championship this season and most, the top is tight, and if it was Sir Alex Ferguson entwined with such a scenario, he’d describe it as “squeaky bum time.” Maximum points would see us return to the top of the pack. Two losses could see us slip to the lower half of the play-off positions and would see us with only two wins in twelve. It is all speculation, but it’s a rather spectacular scenario to speculate on.
I don’t believe in hypochondria, but I do believe things should be repaired as they suffer and not fixed once broken and that is what is key here: Southampton are not broken, far from it, but they have suffered and repairing it could not be timelier than this following week. With no further interest in either cups and a setting that provides a better chance than any to seal a return to the Premier League, which Nicola Cortese deems as inevitable, the time is now and this two-game period, whilst not season defining, is critical.
Written by Jordan Florit for www.maycauseoffence.com/ For more articles visit my website or my Twitter @JordanFlorit
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