The real underachivers of this season

I have been known to have the occasional pop at Liverpool's underachievement this season, but I have actually discovered a team that deserves my anger even more. The only difference in the underachievement is in the attitude of the fans to the underachievement. Liverpool supporters keep deluding themselves, they think that it is 1986 and that Liverpool automatically should be challenging at the top. That makes the failure funny to the rest of us.  This is in complete contrast to the supporters of the club I am about to talk about, supporters who seem only too willing to accept that they will be dumped on by the players and management of their own club again and again. Supporters who deserve better.

When Southampton get promoted  (and believe me that is hard for me to write), it will make one thing crystal clear. The players and management of West Ham Utd have taken the mickey out of their supporters this season. West Ham should have won the Championship at a canter. Their inability to beat a fairly poor Bristol City team last week, when their season depended on the victory, sums up what has been happening in East London. Big name players are taking home big time pay packets and putting in average performances. Why should they care anyway, they will be on the same wages next season regardless.

One thing you have to do to get out of the Championship is work hard.  From the first game of the season, when Cardiff showed the rest of the league that West Ham's players were just expecting to win games easily, they have been off the pace. When the going has got a little bit tough, the players have gone missing. 5 draws in a row against Watford, Doncaster, Leeds, Middlesborough and Burnley have killed their promotion hopes. 1 goal at home against Doncaster? To me that suggests a complete lack of hunger. Compare this to the games recently that Reading have won, against Leeds and Forest, where a complete refusal by the players and management to accept a draw has fired them on to crucial late goals. 

Looking on paper at the respective squads of Reading, Southampton and West Ham you would take West Ham's all day long. Looking at effort, desire and will to win, I would prefer to have any other squad in the division. 

Congratulations must go to Reading,  firstly for getting promoted back to the Premiership, but also for showing the world what the players of West Ham Utd really are. West Ham fans, you deserve better than this. You deserve Parkes, Stewart, Pike, Brooking, Devonshire and Cottee. You deserve players who will play with style, but who will put their bodies on the line for the club. What you need is players who play for the club and not their pay. What you have got is nothing short of a disgrace at the moment. I hope the play offs don't mask the truth

Dave Rogers @NoLeftFoot