Time for gung ho Hammers

I've defended managers this season who have effectively thrown difficult fixtures by playing a weakened team, and I stand by it. Bugger the rules, you play to your strengths and if you're Wolves away to Man United, there's only so much you can hope for.

Last week, however, felt very different. West Ham lined up against Chelsea with undoubtedly our two best forwards, Cole and Diamanti, on the bench. Injured? No. Out of form? No. Writing off a difficult fixture? Definitely.

The difference between the two cases (and I'm aware of how this sounds) is that we are West Ham. We have a time-honoured tradition of getting points when we have absolutely no right to, and during our last relegation fight proved this with wins at Arsenal and United. Would we have got those 6 points with Stanislas coming off the bench instead of Diamanti? No. And Zola needs to remember this for today's trip to the Emirates.

With 9 games left, we have four winnable home games (Wigan, Wolves, Sunderland, Stoke) which would give us a maximum of 39 points. Enough to survive? I wouldn't bet on it. Therefore we have to look at the other five games: Man City at home, and Arsenal, Everton, Fulham and Liverpool away. Sodding difficult, and it may yet spell our doom, particularly if we slip up in one or more of the home games. But the point is this - we can do any of those sides, and frequently do when we're at our best. I predict that we'll need at least a couple of points from the 5 tougher games in order to stay up. So let's start today.

Arsenal is a fixture every West Ham fan looks forward to, because they go into in believing they can win. 3-2 at Highbury comes to mind, 1-0 at the Emirates, Marlon Harewood's last minute winner, this season's 2-2 draw after being 2-0 down. Today is another big chance, despite Arsenal's irresistible form, to get something off them. And if we maintain the tempo that we normally keep against the gunners, I think we'll scrape something.

Or maybe not. But one thing's for certain - there is no excuse for not having a go. If we play our first team, which is the best starting eleven in the bottom half of the league, we will stay up. Those are the rules. The West Ham rules.