With some of the squad's recent performances, including the loss to Aston Villa on February 10th, some fans are concerned whether West Ham will be able to stave off relegation at the end of the season.

West Brom: March 30th

Liverpool: April 7th

Southampton: April 13th

Manchester United: April 17th

Wigan Athletic: April 20th

Manchester City: April 27th

Newcastle United: May 4th

Everton: May 12th

Reading: May 19th

It seems a foregone conclusion at this point that Reading and Queens Park Rangers will be two of the three teams relegated as both have just 23 points so far. Wigan are currently sitting in 18th spot with 27 points with Aston Villa just three points above.At present, West Ham are just six point above Wigan with nine games remaining. Barring Wigan playing out of their minds for the remainder of the season, I estimate that West Ham need about 10 points to stay up. We are going to look at the remaining schedule to see where we might get those points...West Brom have been struggling since the first weekend of the year and went winless in the Premier League until February 11th. Having won just three out of their last 10 in the league (including a draw against Stoke City most recently), this could be a great spot to pick up a win. The Hammers drew at the Hawthorns in December and with distractions surrounding some of West Brom's squad, West Ham should pull this one off.Liverpool exhibited some weakness on March 16th after losing to Southampton and it has been confirmed that Joe Allen is out for the season. However, looking at other recent performances from the club, we are led to believe that the Southampton loss was a one-off as opposed to a long term problem for the club. Sadly, I see this game ending in defeat.Southampton are one of those clubs that most look at as an easy win, but have just enough talent to pull off an upset if your squad is not playing competent football. Liverpool and Manchester City have both recently found this out the hard way. The Saints are one of the teams between West Ham and Wigan and are just four points ahead to stay up. If the Hammers play competent football, this should be an easy win; we won 4-1 back in September and should do so again.If there is one game where West Ham could pull off a surprise victory or even a draw, this would be the one. While it is true that Man U have the title all but won, they have had trouble against the Hammers in all three games this season and managed to score just four goals. The Red Devils continued a trend of major gaming companies backing Premier League football clubs and recently landed bwin.com as a sponsor - and their new sponsor is expecting the club to perform. I'm not saying this will be a win, but a draw is not beyond the realms of possibility. However if Man U play to form, this will be a defeat so we will count it as such in our final stats for this analysis.Wigan's form this year could be best described as sporadic. Impressive performances against Everton and Reading are easily outweighed by thrashings taken at the hands of Chelsea, Liverpool, and others. Only Aston Villa, Reading, and Queens Park Rangers have a worse goal difference and are, not surprisingly, the other three teams battling against relegation. Unless the Hammers have a nightmare against Wigan, this should go down as a win for the squad.The defending champs have struggled of late. They have lost to Everton, barely defeated Aston Villa, lost to Southampton, and drew with lowly QPR. The Hammer drew against Manchester City earlier this year, and there is nothing in their recent performances to indicate that the result will be any different this time around. An off-day by Man City could result in a surprise defeat, but I'm going to call this one a draw right now.Newcastle are level with the Hammers presently on 33 points. Both squad have had up-and-down seasons, winning or drawing games they should have lost and losing matches that should have easily yielded three points. Unless the squad happens to pull off an upset victory against City and come in playing inspired football, I think we'll be looking at a draw here.Everton have had a fantastic season and are challenging for a top four spot. They are currently just two points behind fifth-placed Arsenal. The Blues have shown they have the ability to have an off game - such as their loss to Wigan - but they also have the ability to cross swords with the best as exhibited in their early season defeat of Manchester United and their recent defeat of Manchester City. We won't sugar-coat this one; this will be a defeat.Reading have only won five games in the Premier League this season - and one of those wins was against the Hammers. Reading's last win was in early February against Sunderland and the club aren't exactly playing inspired football right now (and have also recently parted company with Brian McDermott). Expect West Ham to avenge this loss with a 2-0 victory on the final day of the season.If my projections hold accurate, West Ham will pick up 14 points during the remainder of the season and stay up comfortably on 47 points. Considering that we probably only need a couple of wins having accrued 33 already, this does give us a bit of room for manouvre should a game or two not go as expected.Essentially, I expect West Ham to be in the Premier League next year and hopefully Sam Allardyce will make a few moves during the summer - or even earlier if the weekend's Wilfried Bony stories are to be believed - to allow the team to compete for a top ten spot next season.