Manuel Pellegrini- oh to be a Premier League manager.

Manuel Pellegrini- Oh to be a Premier League manager.

Oh to be a Premier League manager! These days you have to be accountable to everybody including both the fans, the stakeholders, the shareholders, quite possibly the accountants, family, friends and even the local milkman who may have lost that cheerful whistle as he drops off his twentieth pint of the day on your doorstep. Then there's the wealthy chairman who, apart from having a seriously vested interest in your club, is still frustrated with his latest golf swing or maybe worried about his yachts in the South of France.

New West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini must be wondering what's happened to his managerial prowess. A couple of seasons ago the gentleman from Chile was guiding his Manchester City to the most resounding of Premier League titles. Everything in the garden was wonderfully rosy and Pellegrini could hardly have believed that several seasons later he would be presiding over a West Ham team who now look completely shell shocked.

Of course there can be no sentiment in football and when a football manager gets stuck in a rut, he may find there are no sympathetic shoulders to cry on. Undoubtedly Pellegrini is an excellent manager and it may be now that his prowess as a Premier League manager will face its most severe examination. Besides he is now in charge of West Ham United and we know how daunting a job that one is. It could hardly be any more testing and horribly taxing because for some reason West Ham have never really come flying out of the starting blocks at the beginning of a new Premier League season.

At the moment West Ham, as their hard pressed and now masochistic supporters know only so well, are once again in their default position. Bottom of the Premier League table with no points from four games, they remind you of those Victorian beggars who stand on street corners with chimney sweep soot on their faces, piteously holding out their hands for money. There is indeed a look of poverty and sadness about West Ham, a haunted and haggard face with ragged and torn coats.

But for those of us who are almost well conditioned to the trials and tribulations of the happy Hammers this should not come as any great surprise. They are locked in a vice like grip of mediocrity from which there would appear little escape. After the 4-0 thumping by now Premier League pacesetters and unbeaten Liverpool at Anfield, there were ineffectual defeats at home to Bournemouth and the unluckiest of 3-1 defeats at Arsenal last week.

Yesterday West Ham slowly unravelled like the most ordinary cotton reel. A 1-0 defeat to Wolves at the London Stadium has left the natives restless, agitated and inconsolable. Late summer afternoons can often be difficult and challenging for the club who used to think nobody could beat them at their old Upton Park ground. This though is becoming a customary series of events, like some hardy perennial that briefly blooms then wilts like a yellowing cluster of leaves.

For those of us who believe that this may well be the way things invariably turn out for West Ham there can be no hiding place. Perhaps we should just give up on our team and follow croquet, real tennis, rugby union or league or the handsome game of summer cricket. Still it could be worse. At least we are still rubbing shoulders with those uber rich millionaires of the Premier League, the colourful and flamboyant likes of Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea, those prancing, swaggering plutocrats with their gleaming sports cars and their fast lane, privileged lifestyles.

Yesterday West Ham boss Manuel Pellegrini told us repeatedly that there was no need to panic although he was desperately worried. Shortly September will become October and November and the black hole may become a yawning chasm. West Ham are poised to topple over a metaphorical cliff but the arrival of an international break in which England will play both Spain and Switzerland in friendlies could well come as a much needed psychological relief to West Ham.

Suddenly West Ham's last season at Upton Park seems rather like some golden, sepia tinted memory where everything that could have gone right did. Finishing seventh under Slaven Bilic and playing the kind of football that the fans felt was their traditional hallmark, West Ham, with the instinctively brilliant Frenchman Dimitri Payet in full bloom and a force of nature, were a delight to the senses and prolific scorers.

Of course, the fans who had retained their faith in the move to the London Stadium are beginning to yearn for some romantic return back to Upton Park. Suddenly Upton Park is no longer that much treasured piece of East End land and the club that once gave us the World Cup trio of Bobby Moore, Sir Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters are now desperately treading water, flapping their feet frantically and wishing they could re-capture their lovely days of 1960s liberation and flower power.

There were some of us who were just rubbing our hands with anticipation, counting the days down to the opening of the new Premier League season. West Ham had finally landed the signature of Jack Wilshere from Arsenal, the Brazilian winger Felipe Anderson would give us a superb impersonation of Gerson or Rivelino from that formidable Brazilian team from the 1970 World Cup and all would be well. Regrettably this would not be the case and now West Ham are beginning to recall that nightmarish season under Avram Grant when four defeats in a row eight years ago at  the same stage of the season, ended in sackcloth and relegation ashes for West Ham.

Eight years later and West Ham now have another manager who looks as though his whole world has fallen apart and nothing will ever improve. A gloomy melancholia has now overtaken Manuel Pellegrini and the long term forecast is not the best. After the international break West Ham go to Goodison Park where a rejuvenated Everton team, although held by Huddersfield to a 1-1 draw, must feel as if all their birthdays will come at once when West Ham come calling in two weeks time.

Then West Ham are back at the London Stadium with the visit of both Chelsea and Manchester United which is rather like being informed that the taxman is about to pay you a visit. Chelsea, in contrast to West Ham, have won their first four matches of the new season and under Maurizio Sarri look unbeatable. Manchester United, for their part, are internally bickering among themselves under the seemingly hugely conceited Jose Mourinho. The defeats at home to Spurs last Monday and the equally as damaging 3-2 defeat at Brighton are beginning to irritate and rankle with the grumpy and cantankerous Mourinho.

It is time though now for West Ham to cast aside their early season troubles and attempt to ignore the doom and gloom mongers who fear the worst for the club. A lump sum of £100 million has been spent on a brand new team who have yet to find their bearings. There is indeed a long and torturous road ahead for those who have travelled that way a hundred times before. The Grim Reaper may well be in the vicinity of West Ham but there are no blood stained axes in our midst and the impending chills of autumn may yet work in West Ham's favour.

 Summer is about to leave us with a regretful tear in its eye but for West Ham autumnal mellow mists and fruitfulness may yet be the portent for happier days ahead. Oh to be a West Ham loyalist. Those eternal bubbles must be allowed to blow at all times. This is certainly time to keep the faith and drink coffee.