Underwhelmed: West Ham 1-3 Man City; 11 December

The expected result was greeted with widespread apathy.  Nobody I've spoken to believes anything other than that we'll be relegated.  Of course, I've not spoken to Avram Grant, and he believes that the team is playing well and that we can win two of our next three games (as opposed to two of our last 17).  He also believes that Father Christmas will be coming down his chimney with presents.

What has been more interesting is the other events taking place on Planet Football (where the atmosphere is completely different to earth, and it is inhabited by alien beings who do things differently to humans).  Chris Hughton was sacked by Newcastle for a record of achievement we can only envy.  When some Newcastle fans chanted that Mike Ashley is a 'fat cockney bastard', though, I felt aggrieved.  I'm a cockney and he's just a wide-boy chancer, and there's a difference.  And Newcastle fans calling him fat!  I've seen them with their shirts off in the crowd at Upton Park and, fat as he is, he's sylph compared to some of them.  Five Bellies, indeed.

But with the sacking, Lord Sugar's suck-up showed unexpected reserves of sympathy, saying she'd invite Hughton for a cup of tea.  That must have made Avram twitch.  After all, Hughton has recent and relevant experience.  He took over a failing team and accompanied it into the Championship, where he galvanised it to be promoted immediately.  Then he took it to mid-table.  He did this without spending any money, and by bringing in Academy players.  Sounds like a better plan than any we've had recently.

But then that was turned upside down by the next day's events on Planet Football, the sacking of Sam Allardyce by Blackburn.  Apparently, the owner wants better football and the team to challenge for the Champions League and had already allocated £5m for the transfer window to help achieve that.  And I want West Ham to win the league, play like Barcelona, an end to world poverty by the end of the season and the Coalition Government to sign solemn pledges to never tell lies again (although I recognise the latter is a ridiculously unachieveable aspiration).

Now I'm no expert (unlike the owner of Venky's, Asia's largest producer of chickens and eggs - whichever came first - who had never seen football matches before the last couple of months), but my guess is that Blackburn will struggle to achieve a top ten finish.  But when Allardyce went there, replacing Paul Ince of hallowed memory, they were certain to be relegated.  And they weren't, and they wouldn't be this year. 

OK, it might not be pretty, but then losing with the regularity we do is also not pretty.  It may be functional, percentage football based on sound defending first and foremost, but our defending has been abolutely atrocious and our attacking not much better.

Like all fickle fans, I was delighted when Alan Curbishley went because of his lack of ambition and boring football.  But my ambition now is not be relegated, and if that takes boring football, well boring winning football is better than boring drawing football and not even in sight of boring losing football.  And then, when we're safe I'll be quite happy to start moaning again about style and aspiration.

But as for now, the chance to appoint Allardyce (Big Sam or not), with some money to spend on the squad in the transfer window, is too good to miss.

Sooner or later, The Pornographers will have to grasp the nettle that their appointment in the summer is taking us to the Championship.  Sack him now and there's a chance to escape (albeit slim), stick with him further than the new year and we're down.  Then we might need Hughton's knowledge of the Championship