UPTON PARK, LONDON — Unless you've been living under a rock for the last four months, you'll have heard, at the very least, whispers of West Ham having a very good Premier League season.
The contrast between the situation they're in today—finishing Gameweek 17 in fourth place with 31 points already in tow—to the panic-stricken, injury-ridden, worrisome pre-season tour that saw manager Sam Allardyce's head called for as early as July, is stark.
We're far, far removed from the disastrous trip to New Zealand ahead of the campaign, where the Hammers were losing to local, amateurish teams while utilising disappointing tactics. A 2-0 win over Leicester City on Saturday propelled them to 31 points, and at this stage, they're on course to haul in more than 60 points by the time May 2015 rolls around.
The expectation on this team has shifted, and the Upton Park crowd has behaved differently as a result. The victory over the Foxes was not without its typical groans from the 34,000 fans watching on; as the crowd bays, it expects and demands high-calibre football.
West Ham, a team who were promoted back into the Premier League in 2012, are now expected to win most of the games they play. It's an adjustment sides go through when they move through the gears quickly, and how well the players adapt to fresh expectation will often dictate when, or if, they'll slump and be labelled a "pretender."
Despite holding a lead for the majority of the game, Allardyce's players looked nervous on Saturday afternoon. James Tomkins and Diafra Sakho looked worried at all times, making mistakes in possession and gifting the ball cheaply on several occasions.
That it was far from West Ham's finest performance of the season hardly helped; bar a three-minute opening salvo of fluid, attacking football heavily involving Cheikhou Kouyate, they looked turgid and uninspiring for most of the match.
As the fans asked for more, the players shrunk further. Sakho scuffed a volley badly, Andy Carroll missed a howler from close range, several 50-50s were uncharacteristically missed and the crossing quality dropped. Carroll's opener was a gift from Paul Konchesky, a horrendous back-pass that left the England striker one-on-one with Ben Hamer. It did not signify a turning of the tide.
This pattern is common in sides seeking to take the next step. It's a rite of passage, perhaps, that a team must survive its own fans' elevated expectations. It's also not a criticism; it's simply a reality.
"We've had a very good day. Everybody expecting us to win, [everybody] goes home happy because we have won," Allardyce told reporters post-match.
"We've sustained our position between sixth and fourth over a considerable amount of games. The end of January will tell us what we can possibly achieve. Trying to stay where we are is an extremely difficult task—it's about the consistency of winning.
"We've got to challenge ourselves to try and achieve; we can't afford to slip up too many times."
A change in style, an upping of quality and some stellar summer recruitment, sourcing players from across the globe, have been the first three steps to changing the way football views West Ham as a club in 2014. Overcoming enhanced expectations is the fourth task.
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