With the pressure mouting on manager Alan Pardew, West Ham simply must deliver against League 1 side Chesterfield in their Carling Cup tie, otherwise I fear that burnt effigies of Pardew will still be sizzling come Wednesday morning in east London.
 
Quite what has gone wrong with the Hammers is a mystery. They have been beaten in their last seven matches without scoring a solitary goal and, despite Pardew's cool persona, the West Ham hierarchy must be close to pulling the plug on the coach's tenure at the Boleyn Ground.
 
In the history of the two clubs, West Ham have met the Spireites on 22 occasions, winning ten, six going to Roy McFarland's charges, and half-a-dozen ending level.
Chesterfield last entertained West Ham at the Recreation Ground in the second round of this competition in 2002 and fought out a draw with the Londoners before being beaten 5-4 on penalties.
 
The home side will be without former Man utd youngster Phil Picken, who suffered suspected knee ligament damage in the weekend defeat to Doncaster and could be out for up to six weeks, while striker Paul Shaw is sidelined with a knee problem.
 
On the Hammers front, Pardew has cited that a few changes are likely with Matthew Etherington set to return to the squad after missing Sunday's defeat to Tottenham through injury, and Carlos Tevez, who started the Spurs match on the bench, could be unleashed from the word go.
 
It has to be said, Pardew shouldn't be keeping a player of Tevez's calibre on the bench full stop at present - West Ham haven't scored in more than 11 hours of football. By any standards, that's a pretty desperate situation.
 
In any case, despite being far superior to Chesterfield in every sense, it's impossible to be dogmatic about West Ham performing at present - they look completely deflated.
 
Their current bout of impotence, combined with the fact that the Spireites will be playing not to lose above all, suggests to me that this game will tight. As such, my advice is to have a couple of quid on 0-1 in the total goals market at a tempting 5/2 with Stan James. Get on.
 
Verdict: 2pts 0-1 in the total goals market @ 5/2 (Stan James)