Betting.Betfair

For so much of the season, promotion to the Premier League looked like a combined Southampton and West Ham private members club. Then Reading came along with a run that, in all honesty, would have been pretty unstoppable regardless of what happened at St Mary's and Upton Park. Yet there must be an element of head scratching going on down the East End of London as to how the Hammers have ended up in the play-offs and haven't gone up automatically. Sam Allardyce's side were in the top two pretty much constantly from early October until mid-March, they have lost only eight games all season and they have what looks, to me at least, the strongest set of players in the division by some distance. Only 11 home wins may have been a contributory factor, and certainly a run of seven games...