West Ham United: The Premier League Story So Far

On the 19th May 2012 West Ham secured their place back in the Premier League with a 2-1 Play Off Final victory over Blackpool.

7 months on, were now halfway into the 2012/13 Premier League season; so here's what I think about West Ham's return to the Premier League so far.

Coming into the season I wasnt expecting much from us, I thought we would finish around 14th. However, so far I have been proved wrong.

A 1-0 win against Aston Villa on the opening day was the perfect start we needed. We went on to pick up 8 points from our first 5 games which is a great start for a team that had just come up from the Championship. October was a good month, picking up 6 points out of a possible 12, this included a 4-1 win over fellow Premier League newbies Southampton.

I wasn't looking forward to November and December. We could of slipped right down into a relegation dogfight, but we held our own against the big teams. If you'd offered me 9 points from playing Man City, Newcastle, Stoke, Spurs, Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool, West Brom and Everton I would of shook your hand off. To start November with a 0-0 home draw against Man City then a 1-0 win away to Newcastle was fantastic. Fast forwarding to the end of the month- At 1-0 down to Manchester United after 33 seconds, most teams would of crumbled. But we didn't  We were unlucky not to pick up a point. A great win against Chelsea was followed by an unlucky loss to Liverpool. I feel that we deserved at least a point against the scousers. There's no point me even talking about the Everton game as the referee absolutely ruined it. The work ethic of our team over them 9 games was amazing and it made me proud to be a West Ham fan. 

In January we have Norwich (H), Sunderland (A), QPR (H), Arsenal (A), Fulham (A) in the Premier League; I think we can get at least 8 points out of them fixtures. Throughout that month the likes of Carroll, Vaz Te, Diame and Benayoun also will be returning, this will boost our squad as the month goes on. 

We also have the January Transfer Window. I think a striker should be our top priority, someone like Darren Bent. I also think we should add a defender to our squad. Im not going to go too far into this as im going to write an article about it. 

Finally I would like to give credit to Sam Allardyce. He made some fantastic signings in the summer and has made us solid at the back and dangerous on the attack. Hopefully we will continue playing the way we currently are and will finish the season off in the top half of the table. 

So that's the story of our first season back in the Premier League from my point of view. I hope you've enjoyed reading this article. Please feel free to give me feedback! Twitter: @samwhufcfrancis - Email: sam11sf@live.co.uk