Tomas Soucek double sends West Ham fourth with win over Crystal Palace

Somehow, the Premier League’s perennial tearaways have become the model students. The responsibility for this lies less with a fatally flawed ownership than with impressively drilled players, and a manager in David Moyes who has taken a thin, uneven squad into the upper reaches of the top flight. Whisper it, but believe it all the same: West Ham are very good.

Just how good, of course, remains a matter of some conjecture. Contrary to popular belief, the league table lies freely and often, and West Ham’s ascent into the top four is attributable largely to having played more fixtures than the teams around them. Moyes himself was keen to temper expectations.

Related: West Ham ready to clear way for Lingard loan by buying Benrahma this month

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