Haven't done an update on the old West Ham front for a week or so, which means I've been remiss in not wishing gaffer Glenn Roeder a speedy recovery from the stroke he suffered after last week's 1-0 victory over Middlesborough. And hearty congratulations are also due to living legend Trevor Brooking who started his stand-in tenure with yesterday's hard-fought but well-earned victory at Manchester City.

Despite these back-to-back victories we incredibly remain very strong favourites to go down, partly due to the inability of the Arse to hold on to a 2-0 lead for a measly fifteen minutes against battling Bolton on Saturday. Looks like we'll need to win both of our remaining games (home to Chelsea; away to in-form Birmingham) to stand an earthly of survival and that would still depend on one of the above teams choking. Looking at the fixtures, most vulnerable could be Leeds or Fulham.

Some good and bad news on the injury front for the remaining games. Les Ferdinand (who has defied critics and cynics by being much more useful to us than over-rated, overpaid Lee Bowyer) has not, as had been widely reported, broken his leg but has instead just got some very bad bruising (!) and so is in contention for a place. Skipper Joe Cole however has picked up a knee injury and is awaiting results from a scan. With Bowyer and Carrick rumoured to be out for the season, that's going to leave our midfield a tad thin. In some ways then, the arrival of a new boss could work in our favour, as Brooking is likely to need to call on the services of Don Hutchinson and Paolo DiCanio for the run-in - two players that Roeder had (rightly or wrongly) mightly pissed off earlier this term.

Good luck to the boys for the rest of the campaign.