One of the big reasons that West Ham are seemingly pulling clear of the relegation zone is due to their ability clean sheets; defensively the team was performing excellently earlier on in the season, but injuries to their key defensive options derailed things for a while. The Hammers currently have the 10th best defensive record in the league after conceding 33 goals from their 26 games. If we think about which teams are likely to dominate clean sheets in an EPL season, most of us would say its more than likely to be those near the top than the bottom of the league. After all, bottom club Fulham have conceded 58 goals this season while league leaders Chelsea have only shipped 21. However, West Ham have struggled for much of this season, but have kept 13 clean sheets, which is the most in the league. The best thing is defensive stability is coming to them at the right time with no goals conceded in their last four games. Obviously, players coming back from injury has helped but whatever the reason for this success; we must all take our hat off to them.
James Kent is a freelance writer published on Yahoo! Sports, Bleacher Report, FTBpro, Bloomberg Sports and many others. He has also been featured in the Daily Telegraph, Zoo Magazine, MSN Sport and the Manchester Evening News.
His role on What Culture is currently to produce compelling football articles that nearly always use of combination of stats and strong opinion. Feel free to connect with James via Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.
