By: Tom Williams

On the day before New Year's Eve, I received a fax from Cruzeiro informing me that they had rejected my offer for Sorin. I immediately replied, incereasing my bid to the the ú8m maximum set by Terence Brown. The streak of 6 league wins in a row won me the Manager of the Month award for December, and Davor Suker won Player of the Month. The streak continued at Coventry. Once again, my team found it difficult to score against them but Melchiot scored his first goal for the club for a 1-0 win. The players came out of the match completely drained - this was a big worry for me, as I was in a period of fixture congestion with two league games and an FA cup tie against Barnsley in five days. The second of those matches was away at Leeds. Leeds had ex-Hammer Frank Lampard suspended, and we were forced to rest three players due to exhaustion. The match ended in a 0-0 draw. The next match, an FA cup third round tie at Barnsley, was far more exciting as West Ham, with all but one of the first-team back, thrashed the Yorkshire side 7-2, with braces for Di Canio, Cole and man-of-the-match Davor Suker.

The fixture list allowed me a fortnight's break from football so I returned my attention to the transfer market. My increased bid for Sorin was rejected, so instead I placed a ú5m bid for Harley, while my scouts went over to Germany to watch Dede. My approaches for Harley were rejected, so I continued to look around. Although I placed bids for a number of players, I did not manage to complete any deals in time for my next match, away to Derby. A Di Canio goal gave me a 1-0 win, leaving me three points off second place, with a game in hand. My next match was against Birmingham in the first leg of the League Cup semi-final. Birmingham had already dispatched Coventry and Liverpool in the competition, so I was not expecting an easy match. Melchiot was cup-tied, so Ian Pearce came back in at right-back. We put in a poor performance, and Birmingham won a 2-1 lead to take into the second leg. On the plus side, however, Martin Grainger impressed me so much that I decided to make a bid of ú2m. Birmingham haggled, asking for ú2.4m - I upped my bid to ú2.2m and they accepted immediately.

I was expecting a tough match from my FA Cup tie against League leaders, and local rivals, Chelsea. In the end, it was one of my easiest matches of the season, with former Blue Melchiot opening the scoring in the sixth minute, and three more goals added by the end, without reply from Chelsea. I signed Grainger from Birmingham the next day, and he made his debut in the Premier League match at home to Middlesbrough. With Mark Schwarzer, man-of-the-match in our last meeting, away with Australia (as was Paul Okon)  I was expecting to score at least one goal. In the end, a 0-0 win was the result, with Mark Crossley, formerly of Nottingham Forest, proving a capable replacement. In addition, Marting Grainger picked up his first yellow card of his West Ham career, and his 5th of the season, ruling him out for one game. But worst of all, Paolo Di Canio, my brilliant creative forward, strained his groin and was out for approximately a month.

The team that travelled to Old Trafford for my next league encounter was seriously exhausted and depleted, with Davor Suker not fit to play. I decided to play Severin up front with Kanoute and Diawara, and bring in Steve Lomas in midfield. This choice paid off as Severin got a brilliant goal in the 4-3 win over the Red Devils.  Severin went back to central midfield in the next match, with Suker fit to return up front against the team directly above me in the table, Everton. I made amends for the defeat earlier in the season, which had started my abysmal run, with a 1-0 win to delight the majority of the Upton Park crowd, and leapfrog Everton into 2nd place, still just three points off the lead.

My next match was the seond leg of the League Cup Semi-final. With my two first choice full-backs cup-tied, and Birmingham leading 2-1 on aggregate, the match was going to be tough. Luckily, we had scored one away goal so a 1-0 win would get us to the final. Suker was fouled by Jorge Campos, the Birmingham goal keeper, who surprisingly only received a yellow card. The penalty was duly converted by Severin. Andy Johnson soon cancelled that out with a superb strike, and the game remained deadlocked for almost half-an-hour until Campos brought down another West Ham player, this time Diawara, in the box. Amazingly, he was not even booked, and instead stayed on the pitch, but to no avail as another Severin penalty whistled past him into the back of the net. This made the scores level on aggregate, and we swiftly wrapped the tie up with two goals in the space of five minutes, from Kanoute and Suker. Kanoute's man-of-the-match performance had exhausted him, so he was rested for the FA Cup tie at The Hawthorns, and 20-year-old Gavin Holligan made his first appearance of the season, and only his second ever for the club. He capped a good performance with his first goal for the club in a 3-1 victory.

Kanoute was back for my next match, a league encounter away to my League Cup Final opponents, Sunderland. The match boded well for my final chances, as we took a 3-0 lead within the opening 25 minutes. The scoring was opened by an incredible 45-yard strike from Suker, followed by goals for Diawara and Kanoute. Matt Jansen grabbed one back for the Mackems in the second half, but Suker restored the three goal advantage within three minutes. Severin had a chance to make it 5-1 from the penalty spot in the final minute, but Thomas Sorensen saved his shot.

My next match was a league game against 7th-placed Arsenal, at Upton Park. Di Canio was not quite fit, and Joe Cole picked up an injury on the eve on the match that kept him out for a fortnight. Arsenal also had problems, with Tony Adams, Nkwanko Kanu and Patrick Vieira all unavailable. Arsenal took the lead before half-time, with Kanoute firing in an equaliser shortly after the break. We could have won the match but for David Seaman's impressive form between the sticks. Scott Severin got himself sent off for a shove on Dennis Bergkamp about ten minutes from time, but we managed to hold on for the draw. That result took us to the top of the table on goal difference, the first time we had led the Premiership since the second game of the season. All in all, February was a brilliant month for us, as we took a clean sweep of the monthly awards - Manager of the month for me, Young Player of the month for Carrick and Player of the month for Kanoute. My league encounter away to the other team in claret and blue, Aston Villa, saw Di Canio back in the team, and West Ham gaining three points with an easy 2-0 victory through Keller and Suker. My next match was the FA Cup quarter final at home to Man Utd, a tough game but one which I could certainly win. And win it I did, with a single goal from Marc Keller being enough to put me through to the semi-finals, thanks largely to another brilliant display from Shaka Hislop in goal. Unfortunately, with Di Canio just back from injury, Suker strained ligaments in his knee to once again reduce my forward options. My next league match was against my closest rivals, Chelsea. Severin was suspended, so Rio Ferdinand moved to central midfield, as Steve Lomas had picked up an injury in training. Cole, who had recovered from his injury, returned to midfield, and Javier Margas played in defence in Ferdinand's place. The scoring was opened by Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Chelsea's Dutch international striker, after half-an-hour's play, but Cole snatched a West Ham equaliser just before the break. In the second half, West Ham attacked strongly, but were unable to score a winner as man-of-the-match Ed de Goey made several top-class saves, mainly from the excellent Kanoute.

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