da fezbet： When a trip to the Emirates Stadium starts to feel like a crucial, must-win game, times start to feel like desperate ones.
da cassino online： Last night’s defeat away to Arsenal confirmed West Ham’s fifth consecutive Premier League loss, leaving them just five points above the relegation places. The end of the season for the Hammers is starting to feel like going all in on a hand in a Las Vegas casino: there’s an all or nothing vibe to their final seven games of the season.
The next two will amplify the tension.
At the start of the season, the mood around the club was one of optimism: a new stadium and the arrival of some prestigious new signings gave cause for hope of an improvement on last year’s encouraging season. We all know what happened next.
When Dimitri Payet left in January, however, things seemed to take a turn in the right direction. As if a bad apple had been removed from the barrel, West Ham started to pick up results and began to look in a safe position – not going to qualify for Europe, not going to go down. The last five games have changed the landscape again.
There is a sense of imprudence to those games, too. Losing to Chelsea and Arsenal is, of course, forgivable – expected, even – but defeats to Bournemouth and Hull, as well as Leicester City (where the Hammers became the only team to suffer both home and away losses to the champions this season) seem incredibly disappointing in the context of their run-in. Picking up no points there means they now face the prospect of needing points from – on paper – tougher games.
The final five weeks will see West Ham play three of the top seven clubs in Everton, Liverpool and Tottenham, as well as two of the most difficult trips outside of the Premier League’s top seven – Stoke and Burnley.
That puts a severe amount of pressure on the next two.
Usually, you’d say consecutive games against teams in the bottom three is about as comfortable as it gets, but this time of the year changes things. With Swansea at home and Sunderland away the next up, defeat this weekend could leave Slaven Bilic’s side only two points above relegation and needing to pick up points in a very testing final stretch.
For a side who were, at one point, pushing for a Champions League place last season, that’s a mighty fall, and one that can’t simply be put down to one player’s petulant antics throughout the first half of the season, even if it looked that way after an initial surge in form after his departure.
Transfer policy, the stadium move, the board, players, and even manager will come under scrutiny from the fans whatever happens at the end of the season, but the fact is that everything about this season has been a gamble.
The move to the new stadium was probably one that had to be made, but settling in was never going to be easy. New signings like Simone Zaza seemed to be taken for their names and positions alone, rather than any concerted transfer policy; and the embarrassing public pursuit of any top striker with a pulse shows the lack of a strategy. Even giving Payet a new contract seems like a gamble in hindsight, given there was no guarantee of keeping him happy – though at least attempting to do so showed some ambition.
But the situation now could go from bad to humiliating. Sam Allardyce’s Crystal Palace will have the chance to leapfrog the Hammers with their game in hand, which would put Bilic’s side directly in the crosshairs of both Hull and Swansea, two teams with upwardly mobile momentum. West Ham have been treading water, but are now starting to sink.
This season’s gambles have led to a high-stakes finale over the last seven games, and defeat to either Swansea or Sunderland could see the final roll of the dice come against opposition West Ham would not fancy themselves to beat. With even Premier League survival now in the balance, and a horrifying run of fixtures to come if the next two games don’t provide wins, it could start to feel like going all in on a bad hand.