I’ve been running this through my head this whole week after our truly dire result against Bolton last Saturday. I was an awful result only further drilled in after their result last night against Sunderland. They lost 4-0 if you didn’t catch it. Which really does make us look even more silly.

Before hand we all knew how poor Bolton are and our confidence was high…which we should all know is a dangerous thing when it comes to West Ham.

I don’t want to break down the performance; who was a fault, who played well, who didn’t etc. But the comments from Parker afterwards have generated some interesting discussion…although I fear, discussion based on a mis-interpretation of what he was actuallyl implying.

On one hand, the fans were edgy and that may have influenced the performance of the players. there were boos at half-time and a chorus of “Zola, Zola sort it out”. Which personally I feel was an incorrectly channelled criticism…I don’t actually believe that at that point in the game, Zola could should much of the blame.

On the other hand, their lacklusture performance may have warranted the criticism vocally aimed their way during the game (and of course, after) and it should have been an added incentive to buck their ideas up.

From where I stand, we as fans should always get behind the team and the players whilst they are playing. That means constantly signing songs of support even when it’s hard to do…and I know it is certainly hard to do sometimes. Half-time and full-time are the times to demonstrate any displeasure. Personally I just feel that whether they deserve it or not, getting on their backs just doesn’t help anyone. Look at the difference in performances from Cole and Faubert since the crowd began to rally around them. You could even use Diamanti’s goal against Bolton as an example…the lead up to that goal saw 5 or 10 minutes of contstant “we are West Ham’s claret and blue army”. Coincidence? Personall, I think not.

I’m interested to know what everyone else made of Scotty’s comments. To save any confusion, here’s exactly what he said:

“I just felt that the crowd were a little bit restless and rightly so, because we didn’t really give them anything to go on.

‘When you’re out there, it’s always difficult, and when you feel the edginess of the fans – which was rightly so – it was always going to be hard. After a little while, although we kept digging in, it became increasingly difficult.

‘It was a very frustrating afternoon. It was a poor result and a poor start from us. We didn’t come out of the blocks at all, started the game really badly and a couple of individual errors cost us.

‘When you’re 2-0 down within 15 minutes, it is always going to be tough. We got a goal back late on and, to be honest, we didn’t deserve anything out of the game, the way we played. Having said that, we did have some good chances, but we didn’t have a cutting edge.”

COYI