One of the most absorbing characters in football, David analyses the game deeper than most and, at the moment, he's trying to break new ground in his psychological scrutiny of his own game.

The intriguing dichotomy for James is that, while he's playing as well as he's ever done, it's not an easy task to actually breakdown what makes form rise to such peaks.

Three world-class saves by David at the Hawthorns formed the basis for the Hammers' run. Now the aim has got to be to reproduce that level of performance every week.

"I have thought about the West Brom game and talked it over," the former Liverpool and Villa number one told TheFA.com. "There's this thing called the zone where all professional athletes want to be.

"But you do things, and as well as they've been done, there's no total appreciation of what you just did. You can reach as high as you've ever been and yet there are still question marks."

Maturity is now one of David's strengths too though and he reflected that the ability to accept the highs and lows of football is another pre-requisite of a top-flight performer.

David's talent has never been in question but earlier in his career, his form could be erratic. So, if the David James of today had some advice for the up and coming young David James of ten years ago, what would he say?

"Even the best player in the world doesn't play the best football all the time - he'll have good games and bad games," he explained. "You have to go up and down. Learn from your mistakes and don't beat yourself up over things.

"Bad things are going to happen and good things are going to happen. Don't get carried away with the good things and get complacent."

At the moment it's all good.

David James was talking to Daniel Freedman