Of course, as many of you no doubt know (particularly those coming here via Arseblogger), while I've been away at the weekend (of which, no doubt more later) my beloved Hammers were virtually consigned to relegation following their 1-0 defeat on Saturday in a tense and nasty encounter at the Reebok Stadium against Sam Allardyce's Bolton Wanderers. I wasn't as upset by the result as you might think as there was a certain grim predictability about it all - regular readers will remember I forecast this situation as far back as November. A recent revival in form gave some brief hope but it has to be said Bolton and Birmingham have responded magnificently to that challenge and deserve to stay up.

Where all this leaves the Hammers, apart from in a shitheap, will no doubt be the subject of future posts. But it has to be said we're going down with a slap, bang, wallop rather than a whimper. He's a good lad Joey, a Hammer through-and-through, I reckon he realised that by the time he got punished for punching Bernard Mendy he'd be in Everton reserves anyway. Given David Moyes' training regime, prison will probably be the softer option...