West Ham's cup final

Believe it or not, this isn't a wum or dig at West Ham fans.

We often joke that playing is is their cup final, and it definitely does seem to be one of the games they care about most. And certainly in what must be a disappointing season for them, yesterday will have been a highlight.

And well..they DID treat it like a cup final. The fans generated a much better atmosphere than I've heard at that stadium all season. They got on our players backs, got at the ref, and roared their team in. Their players too, threw everything into the game - chasing lost causes, never stopping running,

We on the other hand, seemed to expect to win. And I include myself in that. The whole game I thought 'they won't keep this up, we'll grind them down eventually'....but it never happened. We should've played those last 10-15 minutes as if our whole season depended on it. But we just never managed to raise our game enough.

Fair play to West Ham, they did exactly what they needed to do. A disappointing off night for us, which to all intents and purposes was the final nail in the coffin of our title chase. Overall, when we look at the bigger picture, we should still be very pleased. This was the first game this season where we've lost to a team we 'should' beat, certainly when you look at who teams around us have lost to this season.

Another season of falling just short. But another season of being the 'last man standing' in a race for the title can be no bad thing.