New season here we come!!!

Hello and welcome to the first Hot Off The Ironworks, aiming to bring you all the latest and greatest news, views and opinion from the best team in the world, West Ham United FC (well as hammers fans we like to think so!). Whilst discussing the hammers HOTI will also look at the state of the Premier League as a whole including the title race, relegation battle and all the intriguing goings on in the 2014/15 season and hopefully beyond.

Where else to start but the exciting prospect of another new Barclays Premier League season with a host of great new players, managers and I'm sure many nail biting games that will leave us on the edge of our seats.

Forget the run up to Christmas, this time of year has always been one of the most exciting times of the year for myself, being an avid football fan and a loyal West Ham season ticket holder, as I'm sure it is for anyone who follows the beautiful game. The anticipation of the return of the Premier League after a long summer is always high and with the transfer window as exciting as ever and some very interesting teams coming up from the championship, the 2014/15 season looks to be one of the best ever!

However long it may have seemed at least we had the World Cup to keep us entertained in the meantime, truly a fantastic spectacle and personally one of the best international tournaments I have witnessed. The 2014 Brazil World Cup had everything, other than an England win of course, but what are the chances of that in our lifetime. It was one of the highest scoring tournaments in the history of the game and gave us the opportunity to witness some fantastic teams, but also had some shocks and scares for the favourites, something that I hope to be saying at the end of this upcoming season.

From a West Ham point of view this is always an interesting time, as ever our fans are in two minds when it comes to our predictions for the year as we are either doomed to failure and relegation or overconfident and aiming for Europe. Usually I have to say I am one of the latter but this year seems different with a lot of pressure on Big Sam to succeed in his first few games after a pretty terrible pre season and major injury problems with our so called "star" striker Andy Carroll, this could well be a season to forget. Of course there are also some positives, with an influx of new players and a good win in the final pre season game at Upton Park some might say we have a better chance to succeed than last year, especially with the thrilling prospect of a fourth straight victory against bitter rivals Spurs up first!

We can always dream! Let's just hope the bubble of excitement doesn't burst after the first game of the season Come on you Irons!