Woeful Crystal Palace have been worked out - Pardew needs to make a change at West Ham

They’re not the best team in the world, but they’re very good at what they do. They’re efficient, organised, incredibly fit and passionate.

Right now we’re the complete opposite.

We’ve been unlucky this season with injuries and refereeing decisions, but so has every team in the history of football.

We need to stop making excuses.

Yannick Bolasie is widely regarded as one of the most dangerous and exciting wingers in the league so it makes absolutely no sense that we’re persisting with him up front in a 4-4-2, with Joe ‘can only pass it sideways and stand still’ Ledley stealing a living as a passenger out on the left.

If Pardew is adamant that Bolasie has to play up front, I don’t see why Jordon Mutch isn’t playing over Ledley, who was really starting to come into his own before he was dropped and at least has the ambition to drive forward with the ball and try to make things happen.

We’re over dependent on Bolasie and Zaha and simply don’t know how to create when they’re being marked out of the game.

They can’t carry the team forever because we’ve been worked out, while our only Plan B at the moment is to throw Gayle on so he can sulk around for ten minutes and pick up his pay cheque, counting down the hours before another desperate club is stupid enough to offer £10 million for him.

Regardless of what league we’re in next season, drastic changes need to be made to the squad over the summer, because it’s no longer a slump, something is seriously wrong.

I don’t care whether you’re a fringe player on £500 a week or a full international with some of Europe’s biggest clubs on your CV – if you’re not willing to put in 100% effort week in week out then I don’t want you at my football club.

We haven’t won in the league for 13 games but despite this ridiculously poor run, excluding perhaps the Man City game, I’ve always felt mildly optimistic we could get a result before each match.

On Saturday we’re playing West Ham and to be honest, I’m absolutely terrified.

They’re everybody’s favourite student at school and we’re the one that everybody bullies.

At the start of the season we were one of the cool, popular kids at Premier League High.

People liked us, respected us and were too scared to pick on us. Eventually, people worked out that we aren’t actually that great.

They found out we were vulnerable and easy to take advantage of. They started making fun of us, tying our shoelaces together and stealing our lunch money.

They’d chase us into the gents at lunchtime and flush our head down the toilet.

We tried to tell the teachers to get them to stop but they didn’t listen. Some of them, such as Mr Clattenburg and Mr Marriner, even encouraged it, trying their best to help the bullies get one over on us.

Just when we thought we’d hit rock bottom and things couldn’t get any worse, West Ham are about to go full Lindsay Lohan from Mean Girls on us and we’re going to get hit by a bus.

But at the end of Mean Girls (I know you’ve all seen it, stop pretending you haven’t) everything works itself out so I still don’t think we’re going to be relegated, although I probably jinx it even more every time I say that.

Things always get worse before they get better and once Dimitri Payet and co. are done throwing us around on Saturday like a sadistic cat with a dying mouse, we’ll be able to regroup and focus on winning a genuine six-pointer against Norwich next weekend.