I don’t know why, but I feel quite optimistic that we will get a result at White Hart Lane this afternoon. I may well end up regretting writing that, but we’ll see. I suspect that a few changes will be rung in the team selection with Dean Ashton replacing Carlton Cole and Scott Parker possibly featuring either in the starting line-up or on the bench. Matty Upson is rated only 50-50, so expect to see Jonathan Spector come in for him. The last two results will hopefully have given everyone a wake-up call. Having reached 40 points certain players seem to have become rather complacent. Europe is still a possibility, even if not a probability now. But we certainly don’t want to let Spurs overtake us. If we win today, we’ll be 11 points ahead of them on 43 points. So, this is my expected lineup.

Green, McCartney, Neill, Upson/Spector, Ferdinand, Ljungberg, Noble, Mullins, Boa Morte, Parker, Ashton. Subs: Wright, Pantsil, Zamora, Cole, Tomkins.

I doubt whether many of us expect to get anything out of our visit to Liverpool this evening, but you never know. Apparently we haven’t won there since 1963. A point would certainly be very acceptable, particularly as a little bit of a gap is starting to open up between us and 9th place. It looks as though Faubert will be replaced by Nobby Solano. Boa Morte is likely to keep his place because Matty Etherington is still not fit. However, I expect him to play on the left of a five player midfield, with Ljungberg given a freer role to drift up to help Cole when needed. I suppose the brave move would be to drop Boa Morte and play Dean Ashton up front with Cole in a 4-4-2. We’re in a Catch 22 here because if Ashton isn’t given the games he’s never going to rediscover his form. Only by playing will he do that.

Perhaps I am being too pessimistic about tonight. After all, it was only 5 weeks ago that we beat them fair and square at Upton Park. Make that glass half full, not half empty!

One of the good things about this blog is that generally the debates in the comments are good natured and polite. However, I have noticed an increase in swearing lately. Just a reminder that if you swear in your comment it probably won’t get posted. Quite a few kids under 16 read this blog and also, if there’s a swear word in the post, it doesn’t get onto the NewsNow West Ham page.

Also, this is a West Ham blog for West Ham fans. If you are from another club and wish to slag us off or insult us, you won;t be doing it here. I have comment moderation on and every comment has to be approved. It’s my blog and you’re here at my invitation.

Frankly I don’t care. The fact is he went, and it was as if Upton Park experienced a collective euphoric orgasm. Three goals down? Who cares. Lampard off? Yes, yes, yes! However, the fact of the matter is, it was a bit of a dodgy one. Millwall-supporting Sunday Times columnist Rod Liddle has a rib-tickling take on it in his column today.

IT WAS an enormous pleasure to see Frank Lampard sent off in Chelsea’s game against West Ham yesterday. That’s because I don’t like him. I don’t like his perpetually put-upon expression, nor his apparent conviction that he is a sort of magical amalgam of Garrincha, Bobby Charlton and Franz Beckenbauer, when actually he’s Jimmy Bullard with an only slightly better haircut.

I hate it when he looks aggrieved during England games at Wembley, just after a shot of his ends up somewhere near Southall, as if fate had cruelly intervened to deflect a brilliant goalbound effort towards the North Circular and none of it is his fault at all or the consequence of him being not very good.

I hate those postmatch conferences where he explains how well he has played when England have been beaten at home by the Maldives. So seeing him sent off is always an enormous pleasure, especially – and this is the point – when the decision is utterly unjustified, as it was against West Ham. Then, the pleasure is enhanced because Lampard is forced to find an even greater depth of grief in his facial expression, because he has been genuinely hard done by.

Chronic and preferably cruel injustice is a much underestimated attraction in football. It’s one of the reasons I never want cameras on the goalline; goals are fun and exciting, of course, but they are not so much fun as the cretin of a referee, acting under FA orders, who makes a monumentally absurd decision…

The Lampard business was truly mystifying; he tangled, briefly, and without great effect, with Luis Boa Morte (no angel, mark you) – both of them on the ground – and then had the temerity to push the bloke away, having received a bit of a kick. At which point the red card was airily wafted in his general direction. Now, cackle though I did, I could see that it was a consummately unjust sending-off. In a way, this made me laugh all the more.

UPDATE: To all the Chelsea brain dead idiots who are trying to hijack the comments on this thread, don’t bother. Your comments won’t be posted. This is a West Ham blog. Go and post your filth elsewhere.