Sometimes it takes just one guy, one long suffering fan, one scream of rage from the darkness, to put into words the frustration and dissatisfaction felt by many, many thousands over the running of our great club.
You sense a weariness over the position West Ham finds itself in, to the extent of an almost grudging acceptance. The feeling that there’s nothing anyone can do about anything, the David Sullivan regime, the image of an under-funded, uncompetitive club with a stadium not fit for purpose and a playing squad that is being degraded. It’s tiring, disheartening.But a letter passed onto KUMB by our good friends at Hammers United got to the core of the disquiet. The letter was anonymous, but from an ordinary fan who doesn’t do social media, can’t be bothered by the circus that is the "we told you first" brigade, the ITKs and the not so, the grifters and the crawlers.
The guy who spends his money, travels the land and, when the season is over, aims to enjoy his summer with family and friends and turns off the constant flow of information and disinformation.
He wants to trust the ownership to run his club properly, financially as well as emotionally. He expects to see his club competitive in the transfer market, properly funded and able to improve and progress.
He doesn’t expect to see his club with a top ten attendance record in world football, with finances that see West Ham in the top 20 in Europe, with 14 seasons of Sky money, pleading poverty and being overtaken by the likes of Brentford, Brighton, Bournemouth, Fulham and Crystal Palace.
He’s seen the club sell two of our best players in successive seasons for around £160million and still claim to be broke. He wants to know why we were so badly run that we were totally unprepared to properly finance Head Coach Graham Potter’s crucial first summer transfer window.
In any other business there would be outrage at a company not fit for purpose, uncompetitive, unable to hold their own in the market place. But that’s where we are. Struggling to pay off bank loans, struggling to pay off transfer debts to other clubs with a prediction of £100million debt come the turn of the year.
The words in the letter says it all. "Last season was disastrous, depressing," it began. "We are closer to the second tier than we are the Champions League.
"We were promised a world class stadium and a world class team but we are boasting of staying in the top flight for 14 seasons. [Baroness] Brady is telling us that this is the second longest spell in the top flight in 130 years.
"It’s pathetic, small time and it contradicts what we were told when we moved from Upton Park to the London Stadium. They are out of touch and insulting, the fans deserve a medal for putting up with the dross that has been served up.
"Our average position since the move to Stratford is 11th. Fans are concerned about the running of the club and the management structure."
And it’s the usual long list of complaints. Being moved from Upton Park to a new ground not fit for top-flight football, poor appointments, the Declan Rice fee wasted, three years in Europe wasted, one of the richest clubs in the world yet still broke and unable to fund transfers without selling first.
I take my hat off to the guy who wrote to Hammers United. The views he expressed were ones of bitterness and frustration with the owners as he expects the custodians of his club, our club, to being doing a lot better than this.
But he’s not the only one fuming. Social media is awash with fans voicing their discontent. One said: "Most of us only care that a club of our size, with the second biggest stadium in the country and one of the top 20 richest clubs in the world has no money for transfers - and that’s unacceptable."
Another added: "We’ve had 15 years of lies and poison, and people are still shocked when the fans get shafted again. The cause is parasites who have done nothing and sucked the club dry."
Others have called for action, but even I can see that boat may have sailed. The guys who were involved in the previous marches and meetings sense that our fanbase does not have the stomach for more of the same.
That fanbase has been diluted over the years; since we moved to Stratford some 30,000 fans have canned their season tickets. We already have the remarkable situation of tickets for the first home league game on 22 August against Chelsea already on general sale.
This from a club who claim to be trying to keep away fans out of the home areas of the stadium. Good luck with that one.
In all this disquiet, Potter and his head of recruitment Kyle Macaulay have been getting on with the job. And it must be a difficult one when we identify a player, try to sign him, but are told there’s no money and we have to sell to buy.
No other club in the top flight continually moans about lack of cash flow, only us. We keep claiming that PSR is the problem, but then outside finance experts discount this. Even one of the more annoying grifters explained how the club could inject £95million into the market should they wish to.
But we’ve still had to sell Mohammed Kudus, gone but not forgotten. I’ve thought hard about this deal after the initial obvious fury at selling him that to lot in north London and seeing Daniel Levy seemingly make a mug of Sullivan.
But the kid was always going wasn’t he? His body language, whole demeanour and general extracting the urine last season was plain to see. The £85million release clause was a red herring, it only lasted two weeks and nobody was going to pay that.
And when he asked for a transfer, and neither Chelsea or Liverpool could be bothered to bid - and we desperately needed the money - Spurs were the only game in town, or we’d have missed yet another Potter target.
Plus, £55million wasn’t as bad as it looked. Maybe another £10million, but his ‘book price’ value was rubbish after last season, and we’ll get £18million now for three summers, when we are notoriously brassic.
The uproar was predictable however and Kudus hasn’t helped with a few ill-advised comments. But does he care? He’s got a five-year contract worth almost £50million, so a bit of abuse when he comes back to the LOS won’t bother him too much.
Of course, the grifters were out defending and spinning the deal. One of the sites more interested in volume of output rather than quality -stealing every word you find online is not journalism, I just thought I’d mention that - started saying we had banked £55million, which is simply not true.
It's about £18million now, with some of that hived off for Sullivan’s ‘black hole fund’ so doesn’t leave Potter with much. But we managed to finally get the El Hadji Malick Diouf deal over the line, amazing how quickly we paid the asking price when Leeds and Monaco appeared on the scene.
The new arrival looks to be just the player to fit Potter’s plans. Young, athletic, powerful, fast and ambitious. At 20, Diouf is a great signing and we need more like him. He's more athletic than Aaron Cresswell - I'm really pleased he’s got a new deal at Stoke - and Emerson.
He’s a year older than Ollie Scarles and will clearly be first choice on experience alone. And I’m not sure the kid is up to being first choice in the Premier League. Yet.
In all this, Potter has been planning for the new season as best he can. He’s taken 29/30 players to Germany for pre-season training, 12 of whom are Academy players and of the rest, there’s seven or eight who may well be sold in this transfer window.
In all this penny pinching nonsense from Sullivan, Potter and Macaulay’s team have gone about their business quietly and efficiently. They want Harvey Elliott, who I believe is a Macaulay choice. And it says much about us that while the rest of the Premier League are paying 60, 70, or £80million for players, we can’t manage a £40million fee for the Liverpool youngster.
He’s from Chertsey, has friends at Brentford, and has no ‘scouse ties’ other than being a lifelong fan. I hope we don’t give up on this one, despite the belief he’s out of reach.
I do believe Potter will get the half-dozen new players he wants. There will obviously have to be sales, we need to get Guido Rodriguez’s ridiculous £100,000-a-week off the wage bill and raise money moving on Emerson, Nayef Aguerd, Edson Alvarez and even Niclas Fullkrug.
Lucas Paqueta? Your guess is as good as mine, there.
But we are a target for low-ball offers now we have foolishly told the world we have no money. And there’s been more of the predictable moves from David Moyes at Everton for Tomas Soucek at a derisory £12million.
Sell Tommy and you’ll have more than just my Hammers United, letter-writing mate to contend with.
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