Early collapse leaves Hammers on the brink

AS a symbol of West Ham’s season it was just about perfect.

For some reason Avram Grant decided to throw his notes back to the bench at the same time as there was a gust of wind and the sheets of paper blew across the pitch.

Referee Howard Webb paused to pick up Grant’s pad but there was no attempt to gather the rest, which were swept around the field as his players chased their own lost causes and slipped to a fifth straight defeat.

That is five different chances to get the three points that now separate them from safety.

After conceding twice inside the first 15 minutes through Nigel de Jong and Lars Jacobsen’s own goal, they pulled one back through Demba Ba just after the half hour but it is all very well stroking the ball about when the game has already gone.

The victory means City will have to do something particularly City-like to chuck away Champions League football, with a seven-point advantage over Liverpool and Tottenham with four matches left.

They head to bogey side Everton next weekend before their home match against Spurs. A decent result at Goodison Park would mean they will be able to face Spurs with freedom and they know that two more wins from their final four games will mean that they will be playing Champions League football for the first time here next season.

West Ham have games against Blackburn, Wigan and Sunderland to decide their fate but no matter how optimistic Grant remains on the surface, his team do not look like they will rise to the challenge.

With no Scott Parker due to an achilles problem, they were without any drive through midfield, with Jonathan Spector partnering Thomas Hitzlsperger and Freddie Sears and Luis Boa Morte out wide.

City raced into a lead when De Jong seized on Spector’s loose clearance of Aleksander Kolarov’s corner and crashed in from just outside the area with nine minutes gone.

You know you’re in trouble when De Jong scores against you and you have to go all the way back to the Frankfurt side beaten 4-1 in April 2008 to find out what it feels like for the Dutchman to put the ball past your goalkeeper.

Five minutes later it was two, when David Silva threaded a pass through for Pablo Zabaleta to bound into the area and the Argentinian’s cross for Mario Balotelli was diverted into his own net by Jacobsen.

There was plenty of discussion about whose goal it was but all that mattered was that West Ham were two down and looking shot to bits.

City being City, the two-goal lead terrified them. They almost chucked it away when Spector slid a pass through for Robbie Keane, who shot straight at Joe Hart when he was through on the goalkeeper.

But just after the half hour, West Ham did pull one back when Hitzlsperger’s cross hit Joleon Lescott’s arm and Ba prodded home.

The anxiety inside Eastlands only increased with each ponderous Gareth Barry pass and Manuel Da Costa forced a fine save from Hart with a close-range header from Hitzlsperger’s cross.

In the same movement, City should have made the game safe when Silva was sent through on Robert Green and squared for Balotelli, whose stab at goal was hacked off the line by James Tomkins.

But gradually they realised that West Ham really offered little threat if they were not allowed and soon substitute James Milner was trying to beat Green from 25 yards and Silva was wasting a decent opportunity from close range after decent work from Kolarov.

Grant believes his team have to pick up at least seven points from their final three games to beat the drop but there is a big difference from having an opportunity to get out of trouble and believing you will.