West Ham's fairytale season hangs in the balance - they must beat Burnley

Let's get one thing abundantly clear from the off.

Wherever West Ham finish in the Premier League this season, it has been a wonderful campaign that has seen the club take enormous strides in the right direction.

David Moyes, quite rightly, will take the lion's share of the plaudits for turnings things around at the London Stadium, and almost certainly will be in with a chance of winning Manager of the Year come the end of the season.

He would probably win it as well, were it not for Pep Guardiola's Manchester City winning 15 games in a row to leap from eighth at the turn of the year to Premier League champions elect in the space of two months.

But for all the good in the east end - and looking back at 2020/21 with West Ham tinted glasses on, there's been a lot of it - there is a feeling that the club's fledgling European dream is sloooowly slipping away.

Back-to-back defeats against Newcastle and Chelsea have come at the worst possible time, and there's now a very real possibility that not only will Champions League qualification slip through the club's hands, a jaunt into the Europa League could too. Even the Europa Conference League could elude Moyes and co, should Everton keep totting up unexpected points from games they really ought to be losing.

In terms of dissecting why this is happening, we could go down the rabbit hole of not signing a back-up striker in January or we could delve into questionable team selection costing West Ham in games they may have had a chance of winning, had they fully backed themselves and gone for it.

But going down those two avenues would be a myopic take on what's a broader, yet altogether simpler issue.

West Ham have injuries all over the shop and, looking at it objectively, they don't have the squad depth to cope with it.

Yep, the Hammers' trip to Burnley next Monday is now a must-win game in their search for a tour of the continent, simply because injuries to key players are crippling the Hammers (there's also some seriously sh*t officiating doing the rounds in the Premier League, but the less said about the better).

Now, granted, the point about a lack of depth could immediately circle back round to why West Ham did not sign a proper backup to Michail Antonio in January.

But doing that would overlook some of the extenuating circumstances. Namely, good players aren't available for good prices in the winter window, and chucking bundles of money at a striker for the hell of it really wasn't a good idea given the club's appalling track record of signing strikers circa the last decade.

Furthermore, it's not just up front where there's a lack of resources at West Ham - so it may actually have been wise to withhold spending money for the summer window, particularly as nearing £30m was committed to signing Said Benrahma from Brentford (a figure that now, with the benefit of hindsight, looks very, very steep). Jesse Lingard was also available on loan, so.

Truth be told, a lack of quality cover in pretty much every position is why the Hammers were fighting tooth and nail against relegation last season, and is exactly why there has seldom been any kind of sustained push for a top six finish for, well, ever.

In terms of the current playing squad, if you'd have asked any West Ham fan who the club couldn't afford to lose to injury, it's a dead cert guarantee that Declan Rice would have been top of at least 95% of people's lists. Tomas Soucek would also have been a name thrown into the mix, and it's likely you'd have heard calls for Lukasz Fabianski, Angelo Ogbonna, Aaron Cresswell and the aforementioned Antonio, too.

Without those players available, the harsh (actually it's not harsh, just true) reality is that West Ham haven't got the talent (as in, good, good players) in reserve. That's no slant on those who are on the periphery, it's just a fact (if you're pushing for a top six finish, which West Ham are).

Mark Noble, as much as he's loved, adored and worshipped, isn't going to break up play and cover the ground to anywhere near the level Rice does, nor is Ben Johnson going to capably provide the same level of creativity down the left that Cresswell and Arthur Masuaku can.

It's not personal, it's just not going to happen.

There's only so many gaps that can be plugged without a knock-on effect, and it's far bigger than Noble comes in for Rice and Johnson comes in for Cresswell/Masuaku. When Rice doesn't play, Soucek isn't as effective (because he doesn't have the licence to pile forward) and when Cresswell doesn't play, the quality of diagonal long balls in behind dramatically reduces (impacting the effectiveness of Jarrod Bowen) and West Ham's threat from set plays reduces.

Cresswell has the most assists of any Premier League defender this season, incidentally - that's a big miss.

Now all of this isn't to say that West Ham can't achieve the seemingly impossible. They can, and they still might. This 2020/21 season is like no other, and what we have seen from Moyes' team is an unrivalled spirit, work ethic and appetite to rock the Premier League's traditional 'top six' apple cart.

But for it to happen, the likes of Rice and Cresswell need to get fit asap and the notion that West Ham have the 'easiest run-in on paper' must be cast to one side. Champions League qualification would be incredible, Europa League qualification would be juicy and, hell, Europa Vauxhall Conference (whatever the sodding thing is called) qualification would be really, really nice - but a win against Burnley is a must, or West Ham's magical season may not get its fairytale ending.

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