To answer a question by asking another one: Why shouldn’t they secure one?

The last little break of the season is over, this is the final push, where all the good work of the previous months can either end in triumph — or a crushing anti-climax.

Who has the nerve to go the full distance? Who will at first falter and then fall by the wayside?

Not West Ham, if their season so far is any guideline.

If Leicester had not been the big story of this Premier League campaign, then surely West Ham would have taken centre stage.

In less than a season Slaven Bilic, who was hauled onto the shoulders of adoring Besiktas fans as he left Turkey, has won his way into thousands of East End hearts with what he has achieved at West Ham.

Now Bilic and his team look ahead to the last eight matches of this most marvellous and unexpected of seasons — with optimism and confidence.

They sit, as they have done for much of the season, just a little under the radar but still firmly in touch with the holy grail of Champions League qualification.

They are just a point behind fourth-place Manchester City — and would surely have been two points above Manuel Pelligrini’s faltering team had not crucial decisions gone against them in their 2-2 draw at Chelsea almost two weeks ago.

Can Bilic’s team keep going, though, can they cope with the pressure as it begins to crank up and up and up?

“Pressure?” asks Bilic with that disarming smile. “Do you call this pressure?

Mark Noble reflects on 12 years at West Ham 10 show all Mark Noble reflects on 12 years at West Ham 1/10 Mark Noble picks his favourite West Ham memories... and the odd low 2016 Getty Images 2/10 Best game I’ve got a couple but because of what winning the match did for the club and for me as a player, I’m going to say the 2012 Championship play-off final against Blackpool. The game against Manchester United at Old Trafford in 2007, when Carlos Tevez scored the winner to keep us up on the final day, was phenomenal but the victory at Wembley was so important for everyone at the club in terms of moving forward, it has to be that one. I went straight from the final to my stag-do and got married the following Friday so it was an amazing week. Had we lost it would have messed up everything. (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images) 3/10 Best team played in One hundred per cent this one now. The way we go to places such as Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge, the Emirates, Anfield and just take the game to them and keep the ball — the way we play exciting football, it has to be this team. It’s a pleasure to be part of. I’m enjoying every game and the great thing is we all complement each other so well. The other two in midfield Dimitri Payet and Manuel Lanzini, have much more flair than I have but perhaps I have a little more grit and then there is Cheikhou Kouyate who balances everything in that holding position. It just works and we’re all enjoying it. 4/10 Best team-mate Dimitri [Payet] is right up there and perhaps, if I can pick two and because of his sheer ability and what he did for the club, I would also go for Carlos [Tevez] alongside him. 2007 AFP 5/10 Most difficult opponent That’s a tough one but I would go for Tugay based on a game against Blackburn when I first broke into the team at West Ham. We were away from home and, to be honest, I was so young and had a bit of a chip on my shoulder — I thought I was better than I was. I saw his name on the team-sheet, looked at his greying hair when we ran out and that fooled me. For the next 45 minutes, though, he taught me a lesson in how to play and I got substituted at half-time! He was a few steps ahead of me all the time. I am so glad that happened to me because I learned more from that experience than in any win or good performance. I have played against top players — Steven Gerrard, Paul Scholes, Frank Lampard — but that 45 minutes against Tugay still stands out as the toughest of the lot. 2007 Getty Images 6/10 Biggest regret Honestly, I don’t have any. I love being at home with my family and friends and I don’t regret anything I’ve done, I really don’t. 2016 Getty Images 7/10 Lowest point Probably relegation. I saw some players that season (2010-11) who didn’t really care if we stayed up or not, it didn’t matter to them. The way I am, it mattered to me a lot. Players come and go but you realise how much it means to people when you bump into them in the street. I missed the last three games after a hernia operation so that topped off a miserable season for me. 2011 Getty Images 8/10 Biggest honour Being given the captaincy this season. At the end of the season I went on holiday and obviously we knew Sam Allardyce’s situation. Then we knew Slaven Bilic was coming in and there is always that uncertainty. You wonder if he will like you as a player, whether he wants to change things. I had kept my place in the team under every manager but you never know. I had a whole summer of those doubts but when we reported back and Slaven handed me the armband, it was a massive honour for me and the family to be captain of the team I grew up supporting. 9/10 Best friend in football Chris Cohen, who is at Nottingham Forest. I grew up with him at West Ham. Another good mate is Darren Behcet, who again was a young goalkeeper at West Ham with me. I don’t tend to socialise too much with other players but I get on so well with all the squad at the club at the moment, it’s a pleasure to go into training every morning. 2016 Getty Images 10/10 One wish To lift the FA Cup in May. As West Ham captain and a local boy, that would be pretty special. 2015 Getty Images 1/10 Mark Noble picks his favourite West Ham memories... and the odd low 2016 Getty Images 2/10 Best game I’ve got a couple but because of what winning the match did for the club and for me as a player, I’m going to say the 2012 Championship play-off final against Blackpool. The game against Manchester United at Old Trafford in 2007, when Carlos Tevez scored the winner to keep us up on the final day, was phenomenal but the victory at Wembley was so important for everyone at the club in terms of moving forward, it has to be that one. I went straight from the final to my stag-do and got married the following Friday so it was an amazing week. Had we lost it would have messed up everything. (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images) 3/10 Best team played in One hundred per cent this one now. The way we go to places such as Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge, the Emirates, Anfield and just take the game to them and keep the ball — the way we play exciting football, it has to be this team. It’s a pleasure to be part of. I’m enjoying every game and the great thing is we all complement each other so well. The other two in midfield Dimitri Payet and Manuel Lanzini, have much more flair than I have but perhaps I have a little more grit and then there is Cheikhou Kouyate who balances everything in that holding position. It just works and we’re all enjoying it. 4/10 Best team-mate Dimitri [Payet] is right up there and perhaps, if I can pick two and because of his sheer ability and what he did for the club, I would also go for Carlos [Tevez] alongside him. 2007 AFP 5/10 Most difficult opponent That’s a tough one but I would go for Tugay based on a game against Blackburn when I first broke into the team at West Ham. We were away from home and, to be honest, I was so young and had a bit of a chip on my shoulder — I thought I was better than I was. I saw his name on the team-sheet, looked at his greying hair when we ran out and that fooled me. For the next 45 minutes, though, he taught me a lesson in how to play and I got substituted at half-time! He was a few steps ahead of me all the time. I am so glad that happened to me because I learned more from that experience than in any win or good performance. I have played against top players — Steven Gerrard, Paul Scholes, Frank Lampard — but that 45 minutes against Tugay still stands out as the toughest of the lot. 2007 Getty Images 6/10 Biggest regret Honestly, I don’t have any. I love being at home with my family and friends and I don’t regret anything I’ve done, I really don’t. 2016 Getty Images 7/10 Lowest point Probably relegation. I saw some players that season (2010-11) who didn’t really care if we stayed up or not, it didn’t matter to them. The way I am, it mattered to me a lot. Players come and go but you realise how much it means to people when you bump into them in the street. I missed the last three games after a hernia operation so that topped off a miserable season for me. 2011 Getty Images 8/10 Biggest honour Being given the captaincy this season. At the end of the season I went on holiday and obviously we knew Sam Allardyce’s situation. Then we knew Slaven Bilic was coming in and there is always that uncertainty. You wonder if he will like you as a player, whether he wants to change things. I had kept my place in the team under every manager but you never know. I had a whole summer of those doubts but when we reported back and Slaven handed me the armband, it was a massive honour for me and the family to be captain of the team I grew up supporting. 9/10 Best friend in football Chris Cohen, who is at Nottingham Forest. I grew up with him at West Ham. Another good mate is Darren Behcet, who again was a young goalkeeper at West Ham with me. I don’t tend to socialise too much with other players but I get on so well with all the squad at the club at the moment, it’s a pleasure to go into training every morning. 2016 Getty Images 10/10 One wish To lift the FA Cup in May. As West Ham captain and a local boy, that would be pretty special. 2015 Getty Images

“If it is pressure, it is positive. Real pressure is what clubs like Newcastle, Sunderland and Norwich are experiencing right now. Us? We are just enjoying it. The players can’t wait for the next game.”

There are some who say that to maintain the momentum right up to the finishing line, you need to have done it before.

There is another school of thought, however, with Leicester as the star pupil, who flourish under the banner of ‘ignorance is bliss,’ or in other words: Keep calm and carry on winning.

West Ham, though, are like any of the top half a dozen teams in the Premier League — they need to keep their star players fit.

In West Ham’s case it’s just one player really: Dimitri Payet.

When the magician from Reunion Island was injured for six weeks at the end of last year, West Ham’s season stuttered yet they dug in admirably, drawing games they could well have lost.

When their match-winner returned on New Year’s Day, things began to pick up. Already the London Premier League Player of the Year, Payet will be a contender for the national Player of the Year award, along with Jamie Vardy and Harry Kane.

His trademark free-kicks have thrilled fans and he showed his brilliance again on Tuesday, thumping in a superb set-piece effort for France against Russia.

HIGHLIGHTS: France 4 Russia 2

If Payet can carry on terrorising defences — and scaring the living daylights out of goalkeepers — then West Ham will surely believe they can make that fourth spot their own.

What is also in their favour is that the clock is counting down on their last season at their atmospheric Boleyn. Unbeaten there since August, West Ham are determined to squeeze every last ounce of energy and emotion out of the old place, before they go upmarket and move to Stratford.

Their co-owner David Sullivan is not one to hide his light under a bushel.

Back in October wise mean shook their heads when he said: “I know it’s unlikely but we could finish fourth. In football we’re here to dream.”

Now, with West Ham in buoyant mood as they approach the final straight, Sullivan’s feisty prophecy could indeed become reality.

So, yes, West Ham will finish fourth and just for once, those bubbles will not fade and die.