Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
With a quarter of the season left to go time is now running out for Hull to get themselves out of the bottom three. As it stands going into this weekend’s set of matches they are 18th and three points from safety with an inferior goal difference compared to that of Swansea in 17th. As good as Marco Silva’s team have looked since the former Olympiakos manager took over their performances have not quite got the results they perhaps deserve.
Today is a must win game as they will all be until end of the season and this afternoon they play host to a West Ham side that do not make the long trip in the best of form. The opportunity is there for Hull but whether or not they can take full advantage remains to be seen. One thing is for certain though and that is that they will have to play better than their last game before the international break.
That’s because before the international hiatus they were soundly beaten 4-0 by Everton at Goodison Park. The scoreline was perhaps a little harsh on them as they fell apart towards the end but the manner of the defeat will no doubt be of concern to Marco Silva and his job now is to pick the side up and make sure they are not beaten in the same manner once again. The job will be made slightly harder by the fact that Tom Huddlestone misses out through suspension after his red card against Everton.
But that said they face a West Ham side who have lost their last three matches and are without a win in their last five. After the dreaded vote of confidence was given to Slaven Bilic at the end of last year, it seemed as if the faith placed in him had been rewarded with a definite upturn in results. Don’t forget this was a side languishing in the bottom three at the tail end of 2016 but it seems that once again The Hammers have stagnated and the pressure is once again back on the shoulders of Bilic.
It has been a miserable set of results and not a great set of performances either, before the break they were the latest team to lose to a resurgent Leicester. They only really seemed to get going after being 3-1 down and although Andre Ayew managed to pull it back to 3-2 he will arguably be remembered more for wasting the chance to level late on and pull off an unlikely comeback when he fired high over the bar with the goal at his mercy.
That meant a third successive defeat for West Ham to go along side losses to both Chelsea and Bournemouth should their by a fourth in a row Today then questions will once again be asked by David Sullivan and David Gold as to whether Bilic is the man to take them forward as a club. Have they gone as far as they can under the Croatian, but has he been the perpetrator of his downfall after such an impressive season last time around. With that and the new stadium expectations have been raised and the East London side have fallen well short of those this season.
This game is a must win for both sides but for ultimately different reasons, Hull simply need to win to enhance their changes of staying up while West Ham need a win to stop the rot which has kicked in and could ultimately cost Slaven Bilic his job in the next few weeks. I have a feeling Hull might nick this one and create more misery for West Ham. I’m going to go for an all-important home win.
