Top of the Premier League Hammers.

 Top of the Premier League Hammers. 

Now this is a pleasant surprise. Who'd have thought it possible? After so many seasons of trials and tribulations, humiliating FA Cup defeats, lengthy residence in the bottom half of the Premier League, West Ham are top of the Premier League and some of us are pinching ourselves, privately believing that we'll finally wake up and find ourselves in the land of fantasy. We may be in the infant stages of the new Premier League season but West Ham are up and running, firing on all cylinders and playing like a team who have been together for years and are completely at ease in each other's company. 

After their ruthless dismissal of Newcastle in their opening day encounter at St James Park, West Ham emerged into their own London Stadium nervous and trepidatious but nonetheless on a high. West Ham swept aside FA Cup winners Leicester with an explosive display of full on attacking football, a side of dashing, carefree and cavalier intent. There were times when you thought you must have been hallucinating because this is not the way it was supposed to be for seasoned and hardened West Ham supporters. But how shocked they must have been. 

Last season, in quite the most peculiar season of all time, West Ham, without their passionate and adoring fans, still clinched a place in the Europa League. They finished sixth and must have thought all their birthdays and anniversaries had come all at once. Their football was brisk, crisp, neat and methodical, oozing confidence and then piecing their passes together with careful consideration, impressive one and two touch football and counter attacking football that simply demolished teams in a matter of seconds. 

For the first time in roughly 18 months, there were almost 60,000 claret and blue West Ham supporters who probably couldn't wait to give their lungs a much needed airing. At their old Upton Park ground, gallows humour invariably accompanied every pass, tackle and shot West Ham could muster. There were frequent relegations to lower leagues and painful embarrassment into the bargain. Then there was the famous League match against Burnley several seasons ago when the fans revolted and planted flags of protest on the London Stadium ground. They could take no more and disenchantment led to despair. 

But after Slaven Bilic and Manuel Pellegrini had either made too many mistakes and lost games on an alarmingly regular basis, David Moyes returned to the club as manager and now all in the garden is just right, the flowers are flourishing and everything is hunky dory, tickety boo. Poor Manuel Pellegrini, after leading  Manchester City to a Premier League title, must have thought he'd stepped on a landmine. There was definitely an incendiary period when, after a moment of brief promise, Pellegrini found himself holding a grenade and then watched helplessly as everything went up in smoke. 

Shortly after a couple of Christmases ago, Pellegrini had to go and the man who was initially appointed on a short term basis at West Ham was summoned again to steady the sinking ship. David Moyes is back at West Ham and has more or less regenerated the club from top to bottom. Moyes was  viewed with understandable scepticism but then guided the club to Premier League safety if only just. Some of us were a tad suspicious since if Manchester United couldn't see anything of Sir Alex Ferguson in him and Atletico Madrid were only too glad to get rid of him, Moyes had only a wondrous spell at Everton by way of consolation. 

In the pandemic football season, West Ham had achieved the double of victories over Brendan Rogers Leicester City. A 3-0 win at the King Power Stadium was followed by a much closer 3-2 victory for West Ham at the London Stadium when the home team almost threw away a three goal lead carelessly. Leicester of course went on to win the FA Cup in front of thousands of Foxes but last night they were prowling in the undergrowth without ever threatening at any time to disturb the equanimity of the hosts.

There was a time when West Ham were easy meat for opponents who found themselves with acres of open space that was hungrily exploited by the visitors because Ron Greenwood's teams were designed to allow their opponents to play. But David Moyes newly furnished West Ham team were an entirely different proposition. There was an air of  well drilled togetherness about them, a fearless experimentation, a looser, slicker, tidier team,  a side of infinite variation and flexibility, technically comfortable on the ball and moving the ball around among themselves with little inhibition and restraint. 

For the first twenty minutes or so though West Ham found themselves faced with a Leicester side who had so much possession of the ball at the back that it seemed only a matter of time before the visitors would make the breakthrough and score. But Leicester were going nowhere, stuck in a cul-de-sac of their own making. Their passing was fluent and fluid but the final product was just a shoddy piece of workmanship that simply fell apart on the rock of a well organised West Ham defence. And so it was that West Ham composed themselves, slipping quick and intricate passes along the touchlines while weaving and scheming, probing and pressing Leicester with eye catching movements. 

The counter attacking game that West Ham had now established as their focal point left Leicester in a high state of panic every time a claret and blue shirt ran at them with a magical intensity. When West Ham took the lead, Leicester capitulated almost immediately. West Ham drove forward in hunting packs, powering forward with Jarrod Bowen, Said Benhrama and Pablo Fornals speeding like juggernauts on a motorway, driving into areas where goals seemed to be only a matter of time.  

Then man of the match Pablo Fornals gave West Ham the lead that he had initiated in the first place. Darting into space, Fornals laid the ball simply into the path of Benhrama who then ventured into another pocket of space before clipping a low ball back to Fornals. The Spanish playmaker, alive to the possibility, scurried perceptively to receive the Benrahma ball and flicked the ball smartly past Kaspar Schmeichel for West Ham's opening goal. 

Shortly after half time West Ham made it patently clear that they were in no mood to just squander the lead, making inroads into the Leicester half. Declan Rice, now a fully blossomed captain and centre half, roamed past Leicester's back tracking defenders as if they were just statues. Now the game reached a fatal turning point for Leicester. Ricardo Perez, mistiming a challenge for the visitors after he had lost the ball, trod on Fornals ankles with studs up and, after VAR consultation, was sent off,  given his marching orders quite severely and then shown the red card. 

Within minutes West Ham had increased the lead, eagerly capitalising on a now 10 men Leicester side. After Leicester's Turkish defender Caglar Soyuncu had been caught out with a sloppy back pass, West Ham's Michail Antonio, now West Ham's record top goal scorer in recent times, snatched the ball back from a fumbling Sovuncu and Antonio burrowed his way into the Leicester area before squaring a superbly delivered ball low across to Benhrama who simply slid the ball home for West Ham's second. 

Now very much in the ascendancy, West Ham shredded their opposition with the kind of  aristocratic football that their fans had been denied last season. It was almost as if the finest crockery and cutlery was about to be placed on a banqueting table  surrounded by the wealthiest landowners. West Ham's football seemed to be flavoured with the tastiest of spices and sprinkled with breathless sophistication, Leicester now stretched and shunted from one side of the pitch to the other, completely at a loss as to what was happening to them and how to deal with West Ham's high energy approach.  

Temporarily though West Ham lost their foothold on the game and we began to see why Leicester had won the FA Cup for the first time last season. Their football had that reckless sense of adventure and captivating brilliance that had won the Premier League several seasons ago. Kelechi Iheanacho was always orchestrating some of Leicester's most constructive attacks with a level head and a calming influence. James Maddison displayed the kind of form that could open up doors in Gareth Southgate's England squad while Wilfred Ndidi had both grace and a sometimes over active imagination.

Mid way through the second half Leicester pulled a goal back when West Ham, for possibly a ten minute period, thought they'd done enough on the evening and weren't required to do any more. Jamie Vardy, that seasoned campaigner who still seems to enjoy the game as much as he ever did, popped out on the left just outside the Hammers penalty area, prodding the ball back into the danger area where Patson Daka completely missed his shot and the ball fell kindly to Youri Tielemans, the Belgium midfielder who will always go down in Leicester folklore for the goal that won the Cup for Leicester. Tielemans just swiped the ball home after Cresswell had fruitlessly blocked the initial shot  

That though was the extent of Leicester's contribution for the evening. After another surging and thrilling break down the flank Vladimir Coufal. West Ham's enterprising full back latched onto a ball on the edge of the Leicester penalty area. The Czech Republic defender, who is beginning to melt the hearts of an increasing number of West Ham fans, chipped the ball cleverly into the path of that man Michail Antonio who masterfully rolled his defender and then cracked the ball fiercely into the net and Leicester's lights had gone out.

Minutes later with Aaron Cresswell running riot on one wing and overlapping for fun, Coufal spreading mayhem on the other side, West Ham began to coast and showboat. Tomas Soucek was now full of casual nonchalance as if this was a leisurely five a side training exercise, stroking the ball around simply and precisely. Then the fourth goal followed as if the home fans were expecting it. Declan Rice scampered across the pitch and then through the lines, Fornals joined in again and when the ball came into the nimble feet of Antonio, the West Ham forward lunged out his feet and toe poked the ball home for West Ham's fourth of the night. 

With Liverpool also recording their second win of the season the sight of Brighton near the top  lends a somewhat surreal look to the top of the Premier League. For West Ham the Europa League beckons and judging by their exploits yesterday evening, this could be one of the most successful seasons the club has ever known. Then again for those who remember their week long occupation at the top of the old First Division during the 1970s, this could be a case of history repeating itself. At the end of that season West Ham found themselves languishing in perilous relegation waters. Some of us are accustomed to both West Ham and their traditional struggles. Not this time though surely.