GRITTY BUBBLES IN THE AIR

The secret of the Hammers shock success? An incredible team spirit combined with a huge work ethic...and the romance of going on an ’adventure’ following the Moyesiah

WEST HAM are rapidly becoming one of the Premier League’s best success stories since Leicester’s fairy tale of 2016.

And that begs the question: can David Moyes upset the odds and turn them into this season’s 5,000-1 long shots to win the title?

Logic tells you it should be impossible for the Hammers to compete with Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City.

But that is exactly what happened when Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester won it. No one gave them a prayer… right up until they took the title in the biggest upset in history.

West Ham sit in third place, above Liverpool, after they ended Jurgen Klopp’s 25-game unbeaten run with another victory to remember at London Stadium.

And, for now, they are happy to be enjoying the moment as Moyes has somehow unified the club and fan base, and got the dressing room looking as if they are having the time of their lives. After every win, Declan Rice (top) seems to come up with a new comedy routine on Instagram, Michail Antonio superimposed a picture of his face with the caption, “We’re going on an adventure” after the Liverpool win, and the buzzword around the place is “momentum”.

Rather than wholesale changes for the Europa League games, Moyes (below) makes two or three but sets out to win every game, rather than being obsessed with resting players, and he is reaping rich rewards. It is so easy to talk players into feeling tired, a mistake Moyes refuses to make.

So many fans were against the move to London Stadium but have now bought into it, and the atmosphere is good at last while Moyes is building a strong and ambitious squad. The team also know their limitations so, rather than go toe-to-toe with Liverpool, they sat deep, played on the counter-attack and used set-pieces to good effect,

Jarrod Bowen admitted they are now cursing dropped points – most notably the home defeat to Brentford in the 94th minute and also against Manchester United when Mark Noble missed a stoppage-time penalty – because they could so easily be top going into the international break. If they had not lost those two games, they would be unbeaten. Bowen said: “It’s all about momentum. We have so many games in quick succession, but we carry that momentum so the confidence is high.

“We’ve got the international break but I’m sure we’d love to be playing in three days’ time again.

“This club is just a joy to be at and everyone’s loving it, and you can see on the pitch how much it

means to us and how much we’re working for each other.

“You always look back at the games in which you dropped points and, obviously, hindsight is a great thing, but we should have won those games and then we would have been top of the league!”

West Ham are also getting the best out of players like Pablo Fornals, who admits that a large part of the success is enjoying the ride and seeing it as a big, unexpected adventure.

He said: “We never thought at the beginning of the season we were going to be in this moment, but we are really happy and obviously we worked for that.

“I am really proud to be in this team with these fighters. For me, that’s the only important thing. It is too early for saying where we are going to be at the end of the season, but I can just say that working like this, it’s going to be difficult for everyone to beat us.

“I am really confident we can fight against everyone. We did it against one of the best teams in the league and Europe, so why not do it against the other ones?”