A fantastic first half of the season has given way to a dreadful second as West Ham have slipped from fourth to tenth. Manager Sam Allardyce is likely to leave in the summer, but is that such a good idea?

The abuse started almost the second the team sheets were handed in. West Ham, tenth and thrilled to death about it, travelling to Manchester City, title challenge long since dead but still a dangerous, expensively-assembled, supremely-talented team. Sam Allardyce picked Carlton Cole alone in attack and talked in the pre-match interview about the importance of defending well. The perceived lack of ambition didn't wash well back in East London.

The Twitter wanted to know why Cole had been picked and not Nene or Morgan Amalfitano. The answer was unanimous — "Big Fat Sam and Big Fat Sam's favourites." The general consensus said Cole is an Allardyce player, while Nene and Amalfitano aren't, so the manager will cut off his nose to spite his face, picking the former with no hope of success, suppressing the obvious talent and skill of the latter even though it harms his team's chances of competing in the game.

The naysayers had lots to go on. The Hammers had one win in 11 matches prior to the trip to Eastlands and that quickly, emphatically, became one in a dozen. It took the ball seven minutes to enter the Man City half, and it only got there on that occasion because Frank Lampard put it there, recycling possession back to Pablo Zabaleta to start another wave of City attack. It was 2-0 before half time. The first was beautifully lobbed into his own net on the run by James Collins, who later tried to execute a diving header in his own six yard box on a ball no more than three inches off the ground with predictably farcical consequences. The second was swept home by Sergio Aguero after Stuart Downing had worked jolly hard to stop the ball running out for a dangerous throw in on the halfway line and consequently handed the Argentinean possession in space. West Ham had one shot in the first half and failed to pose a serious threat on the goal until the final ten minutes of the game, by which time it was over as a contest and City were mentally already back in the showers and getting ready for Yaya Toure's birthday party.

West Ham looked, and have looked for some time, like a team on the drift. A fantastic first half to the season — the Hammers were fourth at Christmas and had already beaten Man City and Liverpool in fine style — has collapsed like a poorly executed Ivorian-themed celebratory cake. A 4-0 FA Cup defeat at West Brom effectively ended the season in mid-February, and reignited an anti-Allardyce flame that has always smouldered among the West Ham support who don't like his ethos, style of play, or unfaltering faith in the failing football ability of Kevin Nolan. Allardyce's contract is up in the summer and it would be a foolish punter to back him getting a new one.

Co-chairman David Sullivan, a Hammer born and bred, seems to side with the critics. A deep, long-lasting injury crisis in the middle of last season brought about some horrific results — 5-0 and 6-0 losses to Forest and Man City in the cup in the same week — but the Hammers still rallied to a safe midtable finish. Rather than praise his manager's ability to see out the crisis, he openly stated he wanted to see a more entertaining style of football this season and said Allardyce would stay only if he hired an attacking coach to work alongside him — Teddy Sheringham was duly recruited. Given that the fans booed their team off after an important, if slightly dire, win against ten man Hull City at Upton Park, the majority clearly agreed.

Even this season when things were going well, Sullivan met Andy Carroll's latest injury by saying he'd always wanted to sign Wilfried Bony instead anyway. Later he addressed the mercifully few hungover wankers who still watch Soccer AM and laugh at the Quinton Fortune gags and listen to the horrific music they play over clips of Ronaldo dicking about, and said that Senegalese forward Diafra Sakho was his signing. Sakho, an instant hit with eight goals in his first ten matches and 12 in total this season after a summer arrival from Metz, had initially been rejected by Allardyce, according to Sullivan, only for the manager's preferred targets to fall through at which point Sullivan forced the signing through.

While Karen Brady fights Allardyce's corner, Davids Gold and Sullivan are readying a change — David Moyes and former Hammer Slaven Bilic are mentioned. There's a lingering feeling that a club which will soon have 25,000 more seats to sell each week needs something a bit more alluring than Kevin Nolan sniffing out knockdowns from Carlton Cole while James Collins lumbers around at the back, occasionally smashing the ball past his own goalkeeper, to do it.

Having set Allardyce a task of getting them promoted and consolidating in the Premier League, it seems a little harsh to be lighting the torches and manning the pitch forks now he's done that.

West Ham needn't look too far for an example of why this may all be a little foolhardy. Blackburn and Bolton, heavily indebted and buried under a mountain of Championship, stand as monuments to what can happen when Allardyce, his unique style, his players, and his notoriously enormous backroom staff are purged. Clubs rarely do better once he's gone.

Due south of Upton Park, Charlton Athletic are now a glorified reserve team for that giant of world football Standard Liege. A decade ago they were a mainstay in the top half of the Premier League prone to starting seasons well before fading towards the end and bowing out of the cup competitions early much as West Ham have done this season. Alan Curbishley, who like Allardyce had promoted the team and established it in the top flight in the first place, had "taken the club as far as he could" said the 606 callers. As it turned out, Curbishley had taken Charlton as far as anybody could. Iain Dowie swept in, looking like a human finger puppet, and finally showed the ambition that Curbishley never had — chucking £12m at his first summer and loading up on luminaries like Djimi Traore, Amdy Faye, Andy Reid (off diet) and Simon Walton. By the end of the season they were onto a third manager and relegated, never to return. They've been to League One since, and had a financial collapse.

West Ham are a far bigger club, with much greater potential, and a vastly bigger support base, than Charlton Atheltic. That potential is bolstered by the impending move to Stratford, with all the extra ticket revenue and hospitality dosh that will bring. But three teams are relegated from the Premier League every year all the same, and they've dipped out at regular intervals themselves over the last 20 years when a managerial appointment has gone wrong or injuries have bitten. Allardyce is as close to a Premier League guarantee as a team can get, however objectionable his football may be.

QPR fans may look on enviously at what West Ham fans are moaning about, given that Rangers have spent vast amounts more than him failing to do the same. But at the same time, covering that Manchester City game for the Telegraph last week, I could actually sympathise with the Upton Park regulars.

Only a select group of three or four teams can win the Premier League. West Ham aren't a change of manager away from it, they're a sheikh away from it. So what, once the promotion and the consolidation is achieved, is there to play for? Two cups and Europa League qualification are the prizes remaining, all three of which many clubs thumb their nose at. The West Ham fans would no doubt treasure lifting a trophy at Wembley or journeying around Europe with their team for a few months more than most other experiences, but there's no hint that Allardyce shares the same aim — 5-0 at Forest last season and 4-0 at West Brom this (when they had nothing to play for other than the FA Cup) doesn't say much for his cup ambitions.

A commendable fall in ticket prices announced this week ahead of the Olympic Stadium move doesn't stop football being too bloody expensive in general. Anybody unfortunate enough to sit in the Upton Park away end this year at £45 a throw will testify to that. A commendable number of West Ham fans travelled to Man City last week even though it was a televised early Sunday kick off, even though their team is playing badly. Each will have spent at least a tonne to do it. The modern day Premier League very quickly — two seasons in my own experience — has you wondering what the point of that is. West Ham's approach to the Man City game was to try and defend for 90 minutes and see if they could get a 0-0. Once City had scored (or West Ham had scored for them) it was difficult to tell exactly what the plan was, other than to just play out the time. Plan A was a crock of shit doomed to failure, and Plan B was to tell the coach driver to get the engine on so the heater could warm up a bit. QPR fans had their fill of that "bonus game" approach under Harry Redknapp at the start of this season. Fans wondering exactly why they're bothering want to see their team have a go. It's why Burnley have won fans and plaudits, if not points, this season — by simply playing their own game every week rather than writing off games that look a bit difficult on paper. If you're going to lose anyway — and West Ham were beaten before they came out of the tunnel last week — why not have a bloody dig at it?

The "Academy of Football" stuff at West Ham gets a little tiresome, because for every Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Trevor Brooking at Upton Park there have been half a dozen Marlon Harewoods. But this feeling and attitude, exacerbated by the Financial Fair Play rules, that unless you're one of the big five teams in the league then your only aim every season should be to stay up, and any cup run you have along the way may actually harm you in that aim and is to be avoided, is frustrating fans further afield than Upton Park, and rightly so.

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qprninja added 12:39 - Apr 24 "Dowie swept in, looking like a human finger puppet" - made me spray my lunch all over my desk from laughing that did. I think he looks like one of those rubber face finger toys you could get, they're called "Flexiface" I believe. Here's hoping the end of season malaise affecting West Ham benefits us on the weekend.
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TacticalR added 23:03 - Apr 24 Thanks for your oppo profile. The thing that's weird about the mid-table malaise you describe is that you can understand why it affects mid-table clubs that have been in the Premiership for years and have long since reconciled themselves to their station in life, but in this case it looks as though the crowded skies of mediocrity have quickly corralled a newly promoted club into the same holding pattern as everybody else. Anyway, I don't want to drone on, because of course we can only dream of such mediocrity.

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