It will be sad to say goodbye to February. After Jannus Horribilus, February was the month that just kept giving. Four wins. No draws. No defeats. 19 goals were conceded in January, compared to just one in February.
This schizophrenic change in form has led to much confusion among fans. There are those who took to social media (or Twitter as the most of us call it) to repeatedly call for Sam Allardyce’s head, who are now unsure of what to do with themselves.
There is a Twitter account called @fatsamout which spent January tweeting abuse about Allardyce as well as rather more emotive stuff like “Heartbreaking to hear these West Ham fans on Talksport”. Yeah, forget Ukraine and the floods – it’s the Hammers fans you’ve gotta feel sorry for. Nowadays @fatsamout just moans about how boring clean sheets are.
More problematic is those fans who did their best to maintain loyalty and avoid being just another fickle football fan, but who caved sometime in January. It was indeed a very miserable month with some miserable results, but how frustrating to have turned into a knee-jerker just before it all started to get good again.
I have absolutely no issue with anyone wanting Allardyce sacked, whether it was before or during January. I spent two years wanting Glen Roeder sacked and one year wanting Avram Grant sacked. Loyalty is all well and good, but not to the point that you’re not able to think for yourself.
Even I, a couple of weeks after writing a pro-Allardcye blog at the start of the year, when questioned on the KUMB podcast after the Newcastle defeat as to whether I thought Allardyce should be sacked had to admit that if he were replaced by a genuinely better alternative I wouldn’t have much sympathy for him (But I did also say that Kevin Nolan was being harshly treated and would come good when he had a striker to play off, so there).
What did surprise me was the number of people who so quickly turned on both Nolan and Allardyce after a couple of bad months in the midst of as bad an injury crisis as we’re likely to endure. Had they not done enough in the previous two years to be given some benefit of the doubt? The answer – as confirmed by chants of “Fuck of Sam Allardyce” at Craven Cottage and the Etihad – was no.
Tenuous tune of the week: Bob Marley – Redemption Song
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