Disappointed, For Sure. Score Draw.

The sole commentator on my Fox Soccer Plus presentation of the West Ham / Leeds game couldn't stop remarking on what an exciting game it was. Not terribly sure I concur with that. I thought it was a pretty poor spectacle. Scrappy, bitty, uneven, stop and go, and save for 10 minutes at the start and a 5 to 10 minute period after Carew's introduction, we were barely in the game, and certainly never looked like deserving all 3 points. All things considered, I'm very grateful we escaped with 1 point. The lively Gradel could have converted that penalty, and while we could have been awarded two ourselves, we produced so little attacking threat that 3 points would have been embarrassing.

The game wasn't entirely devoid of positive things. Despite the attempts of the press to suggest Parker isn't happy, he looked every bit as committed a player as the one who has sweated blood for us in every season he's belonged to the club. Credit to Leeds though, and their non-stop pressing, that our midfield as a whole never really got going, finding time and space to be a rare commodity.

Cole looked more 'up for it' than he has for a while, and got into better positions than we've seen of late. Carew came on though to show that his control, touch and hold up play is in a different league to Coles, and when match fit, I find it very hard to believe that Carlton will command a starting berth if we persist with Sam's 4-5-1, masquerading as a 4-3-3. Carew looked pleasingly lively, and will be a handful for opposition defences.

Perhaps the most pleasing aspect of the largely turgid performance was how threatening we look from the dead ball. We've already seen how dangerous Taylor is from free kicks, but today and for the first time in what feels like a decade, we looked like we could score from every corner. Tomkins seemed to be in the thick of it from every corner, and had a basketful of efforts on target.

Cons? Well, for 35 minutes of the first half we looked like we had no answer to Leeds' frantic closing down, and their rather direct brand of football. While it rarely produced a shot on goal, it was worrying that we weren't able to adapt or change systems to nullify their threat. The same went for the second half until we had a brief period of possession and energy around the 70 minute mark, with Faubert's dangerous low ball prompting the error that put us rather generously back in front. Nolan drifted in and out the game, and for large periods I wasn't even aware he was playing. Cole looked increasingly isolated as the game wore on too. I fear for Ilunga's place, as there's only so many times your left back can loft the ball aimlessly up the park, only to see it come straight back. His distribution was frustratingly 1 dimensional and I hope that McCartney can a) get fit soon, and then more importantly b) rediscover his form from a good few seasons back.

The equaliser had an inevitability about it, and Leeds deserved it over the course of those 95 minutes. Yes, we had those penalty shouts, but with a hand on the heart we just weren't at the races today and should feel lucky we escaped with a draw. There were some good, or perhaps 'gritty' performers on the park for us today, but overall the performance was flat, and unable to contend, in either half, with the way Leeds set themselves up. Too often we were harrassed and hurried into losing the ball, and never really found a solution. So, disappointed in the performance, but relieved at the draw.

Stoke. Shag, Marry, Smother with a Pillow?

Sometimes, I'm a little concerned that my absolute loathing of Stoke is founded on a cliche based on a cliche with a little FA Cup Quarter Final exit resentment mixed in. I watched them play Chelsea, on the opening weekend, and can confirm that no, my absolute loathing of Stoke is fully justified.

Some part of the Stoke story should appeal to me. Once great club, back in the top flight after decades away. Mixing it with the big boys but on a budget. Triumph of grit and determination over style. Those things should appeal to the underdog lover in me. But, then I go and spoil it all by doing something stupid like watching them...again.

'Anti-football' is now an oft used phrase, applied pretty much exclusively to Stoke, unless you're Arsene Wenger and then it's deployed in scatter gun fashion. Andre Villas-Boas wasn't slow in coming forward with his view of the Stoke tactics after his first chance to see them in action. I say 'tactics' but I'm not sure it really deserves to be plural. It could all be summed up in 'don't concede and we'll get a set-piece sooner or later. When we do, hurl the ball into the box, elbow anyone who gets near it, and if the keeper catches it, kick him into the back of the net'. Obviously that's the 'Pulis way' broken down into it's most basic form, but there's very little dressing and garnish to be applied to that tactic.

There were exceedingly brief passages of play where Stoke moved the ball around with a pleasing fluidity. They were overly reliant on Etherington to take it down the wing and get a cross in, and the same with Pennant, except, anyone with any sense knows that's asking a lot of Pennant. When Etherington withdrew with an injury, any hopes for anything remotely resembling football vanished. It had been pretty scarce beforehand, but then, almost inconceivably, Stoke became even more unpleasant to watch.

Left with no outlet on the wing, other than the ponderous Pennant on the right, Stoke continued to try and muscle the ball through the middle. Remember 'Bedknobs and Broomsticks'? The football game? That. That's Stoke that is. Except, they mixed up forcing the ball down the middle with a succession of long aimless punts up field, whether in possession of defending. The only time any creativity was on display was when they were showcasing their new levels of thuggery in the box at corners, throw-ins and free kicks. I wouldn't bat an eyelid at ear biting or eye gouging as a prelude to a Rory Delap throw arriving in a crammed penalty area. Pushing, shoving and pulling is hardly an alien concept in the modern game where set-pieces are concerned, but Stoke do need credit for taking it to new more tiresome heights.

They offer nothing beyond physicality. Not one thing. It's a survival instinct for sure, and one that has seen them safely mid table for 4 seasons now, but you'd kind of like a club to evolve wouldn't you? I can't imagine being a supporter, watching that week in and week out, which is a strange statement considering Stoke play Premiership football while West Ham sit a division down. Chances are we'll be playing a less expansive, attractive brand of football in a bid to guarantee clean sheets and a return to the top flight, but the day it becomes a physical, muscular, war of attrition is the day I stop watching. It's not cricket. It's not football either.

Race Memory & Title Hopes

Earlier, over on that them there Twitter, somebody asked me for my prediction on West Ham's final league position, and without even a pause I already had us missing out on automatic promotion and coming back up via the play-offs. Looking at the Championship a bit more carefully, it's only decades of constant disappointment that formed that opinion. While I freely admit I was horrified by the prospect of Sam as our manager back in January, as a Championship appointment, I think he's pretty much the best we could have got.

Close season signings, albeit rather Bolton flavoured, have caused me to have even more optimism for the upcoming campaign. I'd have bitten anyone's hand off to land Nolan, and that we got him as a club in the second tier is cause to congratulate Sam and, begrudgingly, the Board. Matty Taylor, Abdoulaye Faye, Joey O'Brien are all good acquisitions and somehow we find ourselves entering the opening weekend with Green between the sticks, and with Parker, Cole, Piquionne, and two...ermmm....'international' full back's names available for the team sheet. Barrera, Collison, Noble and Tomkins all remain in place too. The Championship and hours upon hours of Pro-zone could be the making of Barrera.

None of the above paragraph spells fourth place and the play-offs. Yes, the transfer window remains open for another knuckle-whitening three weeks, and then there's January to fret about, but really, we should go screaming back up shouldn't we? It's only those decades upon decades of heartbreaking failure, dismal failure and abject failure making me think otherwise surely?

The Championship has proven itself to be notoriously unpredictable over the last handful of seasons, with the mighty falling, and the minnows prospering. Whether we instantly adapt to the league or not is a complete unknown. We famously like to struggle against lower opposition, and now we're surrounded by lower opposition, all eyeing us as a scalp. I've heard that we'll be everybody's FA Cup. They'll undoubtedly give 110% against us too. But really, take a look at the table, and pick two teams that could potentially pip us for automatic promotion. Leicester is your first one right?

C'mon then. Who's next?

As I write this, Blackpool have snatched a late winner at Hull. I'd consider Blackpool as a shoe-in for the play-offs. Then there's Forest. Under McCLaren. Or is there? Who knows. Boro with Mowbray. Cardiff, shorn of strikers, managed by the only man on planet Earth slower than Matthew Upson. Leeds? Ipswich? Dare I suggest Millwall? Could Southampton be a surprise package? I just keep on tossing names into the ring because I'm damned if I know who is capable of what in this division. Teams will dominate and then choke, others will languish for months on end at the bottom before late, all-conquering climbs into the play-offs. All I'm sure of when I look at the table is that, aside from Leicester, there is no-one that looks like you'd stick your house on them coming up. Other than us. And for reasons I'm still not sure of, I'm convinced we'll be fourth. It's got to be instinct. Race memory. An unshakeable feeling that we'll always bugger it up somehow.

The Hows and Whys and Whens

The perennial football question, other than "how old is Herita Ilunga?" is generally: "how did you end up supporting (insert club here)?". There are traditionally three answers, with the first being "everyone else in the family supported them". The second is that you "lived at 442 (insert club here)" and they were "right on the doorstep". The third is "I didn't know any better" which applies to Manchester United supporters, and me.

I was born slap bang in the middle of 4 clubs. To the west there was Oxford United, while east lay Watford. South there was Wycombe Wanderers, and north east was Luton Town. The Boleyn Ground was a whole 41 miles away. West Ham was neither in my blood, or on the doorstep. Then again, growing up, football wasn't really in my blood either. My Dad wasn't around as I grew up, and had he been I'd likely have been following the claret and blue of Burnley these days. My grandfather should have been the one to inspire a love of football in me. He'd been on the books of Cardiff, Coventry and Plymouth Argyle (although research has suggested the last one was a bloody great fib) but was a rather intimidating and remote chap, and I never did pluck up the courage to ask him anything, about anything, ever. My uncle was the one who took it upon himself to sort me out. I think he took it as a matter of great concern that I'd managed to get to the age of 8 without the slightest indication that I liked any sport.

He was wrong. I liked rugby. Football was a bunch of men with curly hair, falling over a lot and then kissing each other when they bundled a ball into a net. I just thought association football was a bit girly, which is now somewhat rich coming from a man whose sole mission in life is the acquisition of shoes. I couldn't tell my uncle that I thought football was girly and just a bunch of curly haired men faffing around, as he had a tight curly perm and played football, and probably faffed around too.

One day he came to see me, clutching a tonne of posters. Nothing unusual in that, helicopters were my thing at age 8. He'd bring helicopter posters up from his work, and I'd stick them to my walls, in the same way I would with cars a couple of years later, and with Sarah Cracknell and Shirley Manson a lot of years later. Hidden among this particular batch though, were some football posters, and he "couldn't imagine how they'd got there", must have "picked them up by mistake" and I could "just throw them away if I wanted". That's how it began. As simply as that. Among the helicopter posters were folded, dog-eared posters of David Cross, Frank Lampard and Billy Bonds. I looked at them, awe inspired, and thought "these guys look as hard as nails, I bet they don't fall over much". Or something to that effect. Bearded, long haired, plastered in mud, snarling, socks around the ankles, these three chaps looked like they might belong to a sport I could like.

It was pure luck that the posters were of Hammers. My uncle was a Manchester United fan, and he'd clearly just picked these up from work without a second thought, but that's where my West Ham days started. I was the only one at school who supported them, in fact the only person anywhere it seemed like at age 8. Everybody thought I was mad, and that I should be thinking about Liverpool. Liverpool didn't have Cross, Lampard and Bonds. The more I learnt, the better it got, and soon Devonshire's name was a reason why I'd never consider supporting anyone else either. Then Brooking. Then Parkes. The list grew longer, and before I knew it, I even had foggy notions about where they played on the pitch. My granddad sealed the deal in one of the rare moments that he wasn't barking at somebody in a rage, when he told me "You'll be alright with yer actual West Ham. They play the game the right way."

So, that's how you end up an Iron, born the wrong side of London by a good distance, not even interested in football, and even then surrounded by perfectly good alternatives for clubs to support. There were times under Grant that I wondered whether perhaps Wycombe would've been the better choice, but I only ever wondered.