Just a quick reminder for those of you who haven’t come across it before, the Uncle Jeff formula is my way of comparing results against last season, mapping progress or otherwise, producing a projected points target and showing how resilient or flaky we have been. I had thought I was the only person who did this, but it seems not. When I started guesting on the West Ham podcast “Stop! Hammertime” I met Benji Lanyado.
Benji has an Uncle Jeff who does exactly the same thing. This technique is therefore officially known as the Uncle Jeff Formula (UJF). So here we are about to go into the Easter fixtures and we have a points total of 44 from 29 games.
A simple approach would be to divide 44 by 29 which is 1.517 points per game. Multiply that by 38 and the simple projection would be 57 points. But it’s not as simple as that. This season, more than any, our results seem to have come in batches, a good run followed by a bad one.
At the moment we go into the game at St James’s Park on a run of four unbeaten, but before that we went six without a win. So a more measured approach might be to ask Uncle Jeff. After 29 games last season we had 30 points, but in 2022-23 we had 48 – but without knowing who we had played in those 29 games and who we still had to play, we can’t predict or compare accurately.
So using the UJF, we are currently 12 points ahead of last season when comparing results against the same teams. If the remainder of results follow last season we are due to finish on 52 points, which based on the last four seasons would only be good enough for somewhere between 8th and 11th place.
However, of the remaining nine fixtures, we lost five and drew two of the corresponding fixtures last season – I would expect, based on the fact we already have more points after 29 games than we finished on last season, to improve on that. My mad mixture of science, finger in the air prediction and hope says that we are on course to finish seventh with around 56 points.
For completeness, we have gained points on last season in home fixtures against Chelsea (+2) Burnley – who take Leicester’s place in the formula (+1) Palace (+1) Brentford (+3) Brighton (+1) and Newcastle (+1) Away fixtures against Luton – who take Southampton’s place in the formula (+2) Arsenal (+3) Tottenham (+3) Everton (+3) Burnley (+3) and Brighton (+3).
The downside is negative results compared to last season at home to Bournemouth (-2) Arsenal (-1) and Everton (-3) and away at Bournemouth (-2) Villa (-3) and Fulham (-3).
From a resilience point of view we have won 15 points from losing positions overall – but lost 16 points from winning positions. So you can blame VAR for that if you like but over a season it’s something that needs to be looked at.
Losing points from winning positions does at least show that we were winning that game at some point but it has to be a concern that so many points have been taken from us when leading. Finally an entertainment factor, and I know many of you won’t believe this but our games have actually produced a lot of goals this season and from an entertainment perspective that cannot be ignored.
Clearly ‘entertainment’ for us means West Ham scoring lots of goals; unfortunately the opposition have been too. I look at the aggregate scored against our opponents and note that we have series wins over Sheffield United 4-2, Everton 3-2, Burnley 4-3 Brentford 6-5 and Brighton 3-0.
My prediction for the season is that much will depend on progress in the Europa League. If we go out to Leverkusen then the emphasis on finishing higher up the league will be greater. Should we go through I can see some resources being reserved to fight that campaign as a priority.
Although, on balance, the chances of finishing seventh and qualifying for Europe again last season outweigh the chances of winning the Europa League and qualifying for the Champions League. The UJF says we will finish on 52 points but I suspect it will be 56 looking at the remaining fixtures, and that should be enough to secure a fourth successive season in Europe.
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