It’s been no joke following West Ham this season but these last few weeks have been smiles better, even if it’s been no laughing matter for some at the London Stadium.
And sometimes you have got to laugh, haven’t you? I mean, unless it was you who though that coming down hard and dishing out bans was a good idea.
A few lads holding up a banner that, it seems, was marginally too big to get past ground regulations was not a good idea. It was in no way insulting, innocuous even, and didn’t even mention David Sullivan or Karren Brady, our not so beloved leaders.
And then a YouTuber who has been working his patch, he claims, on the stadium forecourt for ten years, found himself being kicked off. Again, harmless in every way accept by whoever decided to become all high and mighty.
Wed are only tenants so it is the stadium owners who control and administer ground regulations you would think. Who knows?
If you support the Hammers United/FAB in their campaign for regime change or not, there were many who felt the new draconian approach was tough and over the top.
Fast forward to our trip to Burton Albion for an FA Cup lunchtime kick-off. The response from the fans group - representing over 20,000 of us - to all this silliness was that colourful fly-past, a plane dragging a 'No More BS' banner and requesting that our owner and his full-time CEO should leave us, so to speak.
I’m told there was bigger red cards being handed out, but just fractionally smaller than the limits imposed inside the LS (you can see what’s coming soon, can’t you). Size does seem to matter at our gaff, but you are not surprised are you?
But the real laugh was to come. The fly-past took place just as BBC Five Live was doing their pre-match build-up. Commentators described what was in the sky, took several minutes to do so and explained what the campaign was all about. One actually said that you couldn’t have an opinion at the LS, so this was the alternative.
All great exposed for the campaign, which at times has been somewhat parochial to our little corner of gloom in Stratford and surrounds. Not anymore.
But there’s more, as a one-time comic used to utter. TNT were broadcasting the game, and their cameras followed the plane around the sky, broadcasting the image from Burton to Brisbane and back. Nobody doesn’t get it now. Oh how they all laughed! Well almost all.
It has been calculated that the amount of TV airtime would have cost over £1m. And Hammers United were quick to ask Brady on social media how they would fare on her Apprentice show. Careful now, folks.
Some while ago I suggested the club should show a bit of class and not respond to every morsel of annoyance. The advice still stands. The FAB meeting with Brady next week should be entertaining.
Right, enough of all this hilarity. We’ve got a relegation battle on our hands. And things have been improving. One defeat in seven, 10 points from our last five games and we are still in the bottom three, it shows just how hard it is to make up six or so points having got ourselves in a shocking mess beforehand.
The draw with Manchester United was an outstanding performance, but those late goals are killing us. We have conceded 13 goals after the 80th minute this season and an astonishing seven after the 90th minute.
With 12 games left we need a minimum 16 more points to have any chance of retaining our Premier league position. We have Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal and Aston Villa in that run-in, games like Saturday’s home match with Bournemouth are crucial to our survival.
Freddie Potts will miss the next three after his unfortunate red card at Burton, while Jean-Clair Todibo is back from his ban, but it’s hard to see him getting his place back with the good start Axel Disasi has made to his loan from Chelsea. It's hard to believe he hadn’t played a first team game since last season before arriving in east London.
The one cloud on the horizon is the fitness of Pablo Felipe, who it seems is out for six weeks with a thigh injury. I’m not convinced he has what it takes to be a success in the Premier League, but he’s honest, desperately hard working and was crucial to Nuno Espirto Santo’s team structure.
We have lacked grafting, pressing front players all season and both Pablo and Taty Castellanos provided just that in the current run. But the deal to sign the former raised a few eyebrows, a £300,000 player last summer suddenly costing us £21m. He’d been out with a thigh injury in December before his move, the sixth such injury he’d suffered in four years.
He was only a substitute for us against Nottingham Forest and QPR, was substituted against Spurs, Sunderland and Chelsea and was a late introduction at Burnley. He has not completed 90 minutes since he arrived and the injury he picked up at Burnley meant he missed Manchester United and Burton.
That injury detail was kept secret for a while and when clubs do that, it suggests they are trying to hide something. Cynics that we are. Now he’s out until April and could miss six matches, where his hard running, nuisance value will be missed.
I’ve got a lot of time for the lad because of his open, determined attitude and because I’m a sucker for sweet family photos. One appeared with his wife and new-born baby and you realise that this is his big chance to provide for their long-term future. We’ve quadrupled his wages and he’s on a four-and-a-half year deal worth over £5million.
This is his big chance and you want him to succeed. But you have to wonder if, with his previous injury record in Portugal, he was risked too quickly here.
As we await the challenge of Bournemouth and then the following week a trip to Liverpool, it’s our excellent Under 21s who have stolen the show this week with a National League Cup semi-final victory at Tamworth, that puts them into a final with Boreham Wood.
It’s a tournament where the Premier League youngsters are really just there for experience and to make up the numbers, West Ham are the first Under 21s to reach the final, in competition with non-league’s senior clubs.
I’m not sure they have taken too kindly to our kids’ run to the final. Tamworth fielded a side with only four of the players who faced Aldershot in a league match at the weekend. I'm not sure what they were expecting from our lads, they seemingly had not read the room well.
Our lads at this level have beaten Colchester, MK Dons, Reading, Sutton, Swindon, Truro, Boston and Aldershot this season in various cup ties while taking a near full strength Wimbledon all the way before losing 4-2. This is no ordinary Under 21s.
And they were without Mo Kante, Airidas Golambeckis and Ezra Mayers, all of whom have been promoted to the senior squad with Callum Marshall and George Earthy out on loan.
The match was a cracker. Tamworth blitzed our boys with long throws and corners, but our defence coped. Fin Herrick saved a penalty, we had a player sent off but Josh Ajala scored twice in injury time to second a tremendous victory. You would hope we will see a lot more of these lads in the future in the first team.
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