West Ham Fan View: Three reasons why relegation fears have been made worse for the Hammers

As West Ham fans, it is hard to say that we did not see it coming. Following the win over Swansea City, we thought that our fortunes had finally changed but the draw to Sunderland shows that we are not safe from relegation, yet. Last week I gave three reasons as to why we may face a relegation battle but the draw to Sunderland simply gave three more.

Michail Antonio

Prior to the game against Sunderland, Slaven Bilic confirmed that Antonio would be missing the rest of the season through injury. Antonio has ended his Premier League season with nine goals and three assists which is stunning considering that he has played multiple positions for us. He did get criticism for his performances at right-back though he overcame this and proved his attacking talent.

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Now injuries have hit us hard this season and we have constantly had many key players missing. Antonio, alongside Pedro Obiang, has been one of the best players for us this season and given that we will not see both of these players feature again, our upcoming games will undoubtedly be a struggle.

Defensive discipline

As it stands, we have conceded 59 goals in the Premier League and unlike last season where we scored plenty, we have struggled up front this season. Sunderland had last scored on the 4th of February before scoring two against us. We took the lead in the game twice, only to give it up twice.

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Going into our last five games we have to be defensively disciplined and the goalkeeper situation may be crucial to that. Darren Randolph’s error for Mesut Ozil’s goal allowed Arsenal to take the lead last week and his poor goalkeeping against Sunderland was one of the reasons why we did not come away with three points. According to @OptaJoe, ‘Randolph has made more errors leading to goals than any other player in the Premier League this season.’

Adrian also made errors when he was the first choice goalkeeper but we cannot afford to make these mistakes once again. Given that Randolph looks low on confidence, now may be the time to bring Adrian back in. If we don’t, we may face dropping down the table with relegation being a real threat.

Sam Byram

We all know that West Ham have struggled with the right-back position though Byram’s stunning performance in the game against Swansea City did ease our worries. He was not only confident when facing Swansea’s attackers, but he also excelled when he got forward.

His sending off in added time against Sunderland means that he will be missing our game against Everton. Given that our other natural right-back (Alvaro Arbeloa) does not feature, we will most likely see multiple players playing out of position in our next game. Playing against an in-form Everton team is worrying and our relegation fears may not end soon because of this.