In the end, the feeling is of sadness as you watch helplessly as the club you’ve loved and supported all your life plunges deeper and deeper into crisis.
Look at it how you like, but it’s a financial mess. We’ve plunged from sixth to 17th in 16 months and have gone from winning a European trophy to one place above the relegation abyss in under two years.And these past few days will underline our decline painfully. It’s almost a humiliation.
Three of our London rivals could reach European finals, another is in the FA Cup final. We are currently the seventh London club, while more generally we have seen Brentford, Fulham, Crystal Palace, Bournemouth, Brighton and Nottingham Forest all overtake us in the league.
And we are supposed to be the 17th richest club in Europe.
The fans will blame those who are entrusted with the financial well-being of the club, mainly David Sullivan, Karren Brady and the Gold family. And it’s hard to argue. The financial mess comes from poor decision making, from a position of relative strength under David Moyes to the current shambles.
And this is not another tirade in support of Moyes. This could have happened regardless. Accounts can state the facts, but they cannot tell the story.
Some of the statistics are startling and alarming. From that 28 December 2023 date when a 2-0 win at Arsenal meant we went into 2024 in sixth, we have won just 14 of 54 league matches. Arsenal to Brighton, that is.
That was the point when Moyes was offered a new contract—one that removed him from transfer dealings that he was never in a million years going to sign—and was then removed from the table by Sullivan. The real slide started there, a squad who maybe saw change was afoot and change they were not impressed with.
It was then up to the board to make the right decisions for the club’s future, whatever you thought of the worrying end to Moyes’ tenure. Those decisions have been costly and wrong. And now we are paying the price.
We clawed our way to the foothills of regular European competition and have wasted that opportunity, that may take years to come round again.
Since Prague, we have won just 32 of 90 matches, including cup ties. In 2023/24 we won 22 of 53 games and were top of the Premier League after four matches. This season we’ve won a paltry 10 of 37 games.
The decline has been dreadful, Graham Potter’s three wins in 15 would have surely seen him sacked at any other club, although I still feel it is unfair to judge, having only arrived in January when we were already in a mess.
But the desperate last few minutes at Brighton was the tipping point for many. It’s hard to find a Premier League side that concedes two goals in injury time like that after battling back to take the lead through Tomas Soucek.
The fans turned on the manager and players, there’s some sad footage of our away support hurling abuse at their team at the end. Then Potter lost his rag in the press conference. Not surprising.
But then it was the good guys chipping in, and that’s a genuine concern. Soucek and Jarrod Bowen said their piece, and that’s more worrying than the previous week’s outburst from Niclas Fullkrug, which many felt he had the right to say even if Potter thought it was “unhelpful”.
I think he had the right to speak his mind. But it must not be forgotten that he was Tim Steidten’s man, going back to their days together at Werder Bremen, and it was air-miles Tim who got him out of a difficult situation at Dortmund where he had already been replaced by a younger, quicker model.
Steidten, having said he would do all his transfer deals at West Ham again, then backtracked and admitted that he was well aware of Fullkrug’s injury and fitness situation and that the deal was a mistake. So I feel Fulle’s views should be seen in that context.
Not so Soucek and Bowen. The Czech was fuming after scoring what he felt was the winner. He was clearly not happy with the application of his colleagues when those two late goals went in. He then said that it used to be West Ham who scored late goals to win games, and refused to ‘turn off’ like that.
Bowen then insisted that if anyone was happy with 17th spot they should not be here. Both players are products of the Moyes era, when regardless of your view on the style play, nobody threw in the towel. There has also been a view from a confidante of Moyes that there are players at West Ham who will "let you down".
Maybe Potter is discovering this for himself. Being a friend of Brady and her husband from their Birmingham days, I’d be amazed if Potter did not know all about the way West Ham are run and the constant issues with the board and money. But whether he was as aware of the malaise at West Ham on the playing side is anyone’s guess.
I feel for Soucek, who has his limitations but has given blood, skin and bone fragments to the cause and can be counted on for 100 per cent every game. Second top scorer with eight from 30 games behind Bowen, who has nine from 30.
His performance at Brighton, hitting the bar and going close on the near post, had that element of annoyance about it. It has been alleged that Potter has told him he will be sold in the summer, and then dropped him from the side.
At 30, and contracted until June 2027, Soucek wants to see out his career at West Ham with a new contract after 35 goals from 180 appearances.
If Potter’s stance is true, I feel Soucek is being treated pretty shoddily after his years of total commitment. If he is not going to be offered one, that’s poor from Potter. And Soucek’s comments over how the team switched off and gifted two goals is telling.
Now we have a financial crisis that has enraged the fans, who are confused, to put it mildly. The usual mouthpieces and grifters have been spelling out the severity of the situation, while football finances experts from Kieran Maguire to the media, imply that the issue is not as serious as painted.
It is hard to see how things have got so bad so quickly, it even suggests that the goalposts have been moved as Potter is planning his overhaul, which looks more like a fire sale the closer we get to the end of the season.
It must be obvious that more will need to be sold than he first expected, a couple of seasons accounts are in play here, and the finger pointing has started.
Almost everything is being blamed. No European football, the drop in prize money caused by the Potter regime and our 17th position, a lack of TV games, poorly judged transfer activity, even the extended time it’s taking for the Manchester City case to be completed.
That’s already cost every Premier League club £1m and could run to £5m each. Whatever happens with that, City will appeal, and appeal again to European courts. There’s a long way to go on this one yet.
The answer for West Ham, it’s suggested, is another share issue to drum up revenue, which would mean a further change in the board’s power base. But it would produce further investment in the club from the current board, because we are a cash flow club.
They may be billionaires and be the third richest ownership in the league, but they don’t contribute anything tangibly for the future of the club.
But what is glaringly obvious is that the decision-making leaves much to be desired. Who they employ, how much it costs, who they buy and who they give that responsibility to.
You can’t moan about money being wasted and the wrong managers, coaches and technical directors being employed. That’s the responsibility of who signs the cheques.
Did Potter expect this? I doubt it. Did he expect a drop off in performance from a string of players who expect to be sold? Surely he can work that one out for himself now.
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