Hammer Times - West Ham United Blog

The promise of a new season

Mon, 10 Aug 2009

Six days to go. Six days until all the waiting, all the build up, all the hype comes to a crashing crescendo and fans up and down the country all cheer the kick-off with a sense of optimism that only comes with the promise of a new season.

All those pre-season blues and bookies odds are thrown out of the window and we stop asking ourselves questions and start looking for answers on the pitch... which usually leads to more questions.

I am glad that we don't open the season with a Man Utd or Chelsea away game, and on paper a visit to a newly promoted team looks like a good place to go and start the season with 3 points under your belt. I know that Wolves will be up for it and will have something to prove, and even though this could prove to be a classic 'trap game' I still won't settle for anything less than a win. At the end of the day, if we're serious about pushing forward we can't be looking at a trip to newly promoted club as anything other than a victory. It seems we tend to play up (or down) to our opposition and too long have these sort of fixtures proved to be our stumbling block (see at home versus Baggies last season).

Lack of firepower upfront or not I expect the midfield to be pushing up the pitch, the fullbacks to be overlapping the wingers (Come on Faubert.. please take this opportunity) and Jiminez and Dyer to be lurking around Cole so often he'll be fed up of seeing them. This is a chance to go out, put all the crappy pre season results behind us and attack. Attack. Get some confidence early and feed off it, lord knows we'll need it against Spurs.