For the first time in a long time, I’ve found myself glad to have had a couple of weeks without fixtures. A season of poor performances, unhappy fans and negative publicity finally reached its tipping point as Burnley won 3-0 and fans took matters into their own hands.

Something I made my feelings clear about is that rightly or wrongly, the crowd do have a large impact on the players’ performance. There are very few things we, as fans have control over at West Ham, and creating an atmosphere to spur the players on is one of them. While players should always give 100%, there is no denying that encouragement from the crowd will give them that extra bit of help when it’s needed most. For this reason, I’ll be cheering the team on for every game this season and keeping opinions and feelings for after the full-time whistle.

Moving swiftly on, I’m hoping to see a rejuvenated team return against Southampton, with each player taking direct responsibility for their own performances. There is no room for excuses and every point could now be the difference between relegation and staying in the league.

I’m happy the negativity has died down on social media since the Burnley game, because while I want to vent as much as anybody else, the continuous arguing between our own fan base quickly turned nasty… and that’s not what we should be doing.

So here’s to happy Hammers this weekend. I reckon we’ll take three points, as long as the players are ready for a battle, and that’s exactly what we have on our hands.

COME ON YOU IRONS