Month: May 2024

West Ham Monday Briefing: New Coach Class, Paqueta’s Cautionary Tale, and Tim’s Smart Recruitment

Out with the old and in with the new at West Ham. But a lot of hard work is needed to freshen up the small and aged squad left behind and prepare them for a very different style of play.

That’s another season fully wrapped up. We now know the full lineup for the 2024/25 Premier League season and which of those clubs will be playing in the new convoluted format of European competition. The latter not being something that will involve West Ham this time around.

The season had ended for the Hammers the previous weekend with a typical Moyesball performance. The ten men behind the ball containment plan failing to make it beyond two minutes and taking all the wind out of Super Sunday’s sails. Manchester City should have been out of sight by the break until a stupendous Mohammed Kudus strike briefly gave the game the impression of a contest. But rather than attempt to capitalise on the hosts sudden jitters, it was back to Plan A for David Moyes, and the outcome became a formality. West Ham once again playing their part as perfectly obliging last-day opponents.

It is acceptable for people to have differing views of Moyes time at West Ham. Anyone is entitled to believe he did a fantastic job, but I imagine that view is skewed significantly by the Europa Conference win. An average league finish of 9th over four seasons is roughly what should be expected for a club of its size. But achieving mediocrity in such a dull and cautious fashion was always the biggest beef.

What I cannot accept, however, are claims that Moyes left the club in a better position than he found it, A quick scan through the squad list should immediately dispel claims that it is in good shape. Having spent in excess of £400 million on player recruitment it is a shambles. It has often been said that Moyes ‘prefers’ to work with a small squad, as if that was ever a reasonable position for a club playing two games per week for large parts of the season. It was negligent, not reasonable. Anyway, we are now able to draw a line under the previous manager’s tenure and need never mention him again.

Julen Lopetegui was finally announced as West Ham’s head coach this week and it already feels like a breath of fresh air is blowing through Rush Green. How long that lasts will depend on the success or otherwise of the massive rebuilding job required in the upcoming transfer windows. The task is to big to fix all the problems in a single window. And it’s not just a case of bringing in the numbers, they also need to be bedded down into a style of play that is the polar opposite of the last four years. If it tkes eight to ten games to do that, then the pressure may be on.

The video released by the club on Lopetegui’s first day was obviously stage-managed for the sake of positivity, but there was a good feel to the relationship between the coach, Tim Steidten and Mark Noble. Maintaining that will be critical in the coming months for squad management, recruitment and bringing youth players into first team consideration.

The Lucas Paqueta situation has surely put a spanner in the works of the summer recruitment plans. Any thoughts of cashing in on a £85 million release clause to fund incoming transfers are now firmly on hold. Although, to be honest, I’ve struggled to understand how his maverick approach to the game would fit within the structure of Pep Guardiola’s keep-ball philosophy.

It is impossible to know how the charges will pan out with the FA. Do they have hard evidence or is it just a case of looking dodgy?  There will need to be more than suspicious circumstances and a slow-motion VAR-style trial of Paqueta’s yellow-cards to justify ending someone’s career. And what are the timescales involved? The Ivan Toney case seemed to drag on for some months and Manchester City have been in the dock for almost 18 months over their 115 charges. If Paqueta is implicated, what was he thinking?

It is ironic that Betway were the whistleblowers in the case. The gambling industry is one of the most immoral and unscrupulous of all businesses and the sooner West Ham break the connection with them the better. Taking bets on throw-ins, corners, and yellow-cards is just asking for trouble.

The summer transfer window officially opens on June 14 but already the rumour mill has been running red-hot. Here is a cut out keep guide to the stories seen so far – I’m sure some have been missed.

We can only speculate on the positions Lopetegui and Stediten see as the priorities in sorting out the current mess. If the intention is possession-based football with a high press, high backline and with width coming from the full-backs then there’s not much to work with. A new striker, a couple of centre-backs, a new right back, and a defensive midfielder as a minimum.

Recruitment is going to have to be smart. It seems highly unlikely the club will be shopping in the £40 – £50 million aisle – certainly not for defenders. Tim is going to have to earn his corn and live up to the pearl-diving reputation.

It will be interesrting to see how the Flynn Downes resolves itself. Most supporters saw a very good player there but the manager who is no longer mentioned just didn’t fancy him. He can only have improved with a year at the top end of the Championship orchestrating play in a passing side – and there is the benefit of qualification as one of the homegrown contingent. While meeting the target of eight homegrown players enables the maximum 25 man squad to be achieved, no benefit is derived from registering a homegrown player if he is unlikely to ever feature e.g. Aaron Cresswell.

It is going to be a fascinating summer at the club with early business essential to ward off those recurring bad dreams whereby the intellectual lightweights of the pundit fraternity – Sutton, Crooks, Collymore and co – are whispering “be careful what you wish for” in my ear. COYI!

West Ham visit the Etihad Stadium this weekend, but it will take a miraculous turnaround in form and recent history of the fixture to deprive Manchester City of their fourth title in a row.  

It was back in early March as the season approached the three-quarter mark when I tried to assess our chances of finishing in the top seven which would probably give us the opportunity to qualify for Europe next season via our finishing league position. At that time I looked at the teams who were in 6th to 11th, and they were as follows (all had eleven games remaining apart from Chelsea with twelve)

6. Manchester United 44 points (27 games)
7. West Ham 42 points (27)
8. Newcastle 40 points (27)
9. Brighton 39 points (27)
10. Wolves 38 points (27)
11. Chelsea 36 points (26)

I looked at the degree of difficulty in the remaining fixtures for each side based upon the position in the league table of their remaining opponents at that time. The degree of difficulty factor suggested that Newcastle had the easiest run-in with the average positions of opponents as follows: Newcastle 12.2, Manchester United 11.7, Chelsea 10.6, Wolves 10.0, West Ham 9.5, Brighton 9.0.

I then predicted the results of each teams remaining games with a formula based upon fixtures remaining, whether or not the remaining games were home or away, and the results when the sides met earlier in the season. Additional factors included games against the top 5 teams, and games against each other. This gave me a prediction of the final standings:

6. Manchester United – 61 points
7. Newcastle – 57 points
8. West Ham – 57 points
9. Wolves – 55 points
10. Chelsea – 54 points
11. Brighton 51 points

Bookmakers at that time had Manchester United and Newcastle finishing sixth and seventh, Brighton and Chelsea above us in eighth and ninth with West Ham just scraping into the top half in tenth. It was just a bit of fun, and my gut feeling was that we’d be fortunate to do as well as this, I wrote that perhaps tenth was just about right. Football matches are notoriously unpredictable to forecast which stems from various factors like team dynamics, player and overall team form, European and FA Cup games to play, the Thursday / Sunday mix which is often an issue, injuries, and even unpredictable events during a game, as well as all sorts of other miscellaneous factors.

With the final games to play on Sunday, 6th downwards reads as follows:

6. Chelsea – 60 points (H v Bournemouth)
7. Newcastle – 57 points (A v Brentford)
8. Manchester United – 57 points (A v Brighton)
9. West Ham – 52 points (A v Manchester City)
10. Brighton – 48 points (H v Manchester United)
11. Bournemouth – 48 points (A v Chelsea)
12. Crystal Palace – 46 points (H v Aston Villa)
13. Wolves – 46 points (A v Liverpool)

My original thought that 57 points might just be enough for 7th was just a little short of the mark. Chelsea have finished the season strongly, and Newcastle have done well since the turnaround in their game against us, but other contenders such as Manchester United, Wolves, Brighton and ourselves have been inconsistent. After a poor start to the season Bournemouth have improved considerably, and Crystal Palace are second only to Manchester City on recent form with 16 points from their last six games, but their improvement was much too late.

We have 52 points and I will be very happy but massively surprised if we add to that in the final game. We are five points shy of my prediction; those five points were lost in two home games that I was hoping we would win, against Burnley where we drew 2-2 and Fulham where we went down 2-0. Other than that I would have been spot on. We might have even exceeded the 57 point mark had we held on to our 3-1 lead in Newcastle.

But it was not to be and our poor record in the latter half of the season has let us down after entering 2024 in sixth place. We are guaranteed to finish in ninth place (exactly halfway between my forecast and my gut feeling) whatever the outcome this weekend. We are eighth when it comes to scoring goals, but in the bottom four when it comes to conceding them, and therein lies the main problem.

In our articles throughout the season, particularly in the last few months, we have discussed what we believed were the shortcomings of the manager, but this will be his last game and we must now await was lies ahead in the summer and beyond.

Social media articles have already started the Lopetegui in / out debate before he has already been officially announced as the new ‘head coach’! The two sides have been debating whether or not he will lift us off our seats with enterprising, entertaining, attacking football? Will he be far removed from what we have witnessed in the past four years? How good is his record? To me on paper it looks very sound, but he has had some good teams / players to work with (Porto, Spain, Real Madrid, Sevilla). His overall record as a manager shows a 57% win rate from over 400 games.

Statistically, David Moyes record (in a West Ham context) is very sound too, but results in the last season and a half have been less than convincing apart from the European adventure and trophy. The football played in so many games has not been good enough, tactically he has been left wanting frequently, and we have suffered a number of heavy (embarrassing) defeats.

I won’t enter the debate on the new head coach until he is here and will wait to see what happens in the next few months. He certainly has a big job to do in overhauling the squad with many out of contract and ageing players. David Moyes apparently likes working with small squads and it certainly caught up with him in the end.

I have been thinking about some of the players that we’ve sold or sent out on loan in the last year. Pablo Fornals was a Spanish international when he came to us, did a reasonable if unspectacular job here, and now at Real Betis is creating more chances than virtually everyone in the Spanish league. Thilo Kehrer, a German international, never seemed to be at his best here, yet just take a look at his spectacular statistics at Monaco. Said Benrahma, superb for Brentford, comes to us, clearly not fancied by the manager, confidence disappears, is now turning it on at Lyons. Flynn Downes, always looked a decent player to me when given an opportunity here, but allowed out on loan to Southampton, where Russell Martin described him as their key player in the push for promotion. Freddie Potts, on loan at Wycombe, their player of the year. Perhaps one or more of these could have been more than useful in the squad in the disappointing second half of the season where a European place beckoned at the turn of the year but faded in 2024. But no we turned to Kalvin Phillips, a seasoned England international but way off the pace sitting on the Manchester City bench who has cost us millions. That turned out well, didn’t it?

Several positions need strengthening but for me a key priority is at the back, in particular central defence where for so long we have lacked pace to deal with the speed of Premier League attackers. Will Paqueta stay? Personally, I’m not bothered either way. He has undoubted talents but application can be lacking at times, and I’d hope that the £85million could be spent as wisely as it was when Declan Rice left a year ago with Kudus, Alvarez and JWP, all of whom I believe can offer much in the future if used in the right way, in the right positions, alongside Hammer of the Year Jarrod Bowen.

For some time now our Academy and youth teams have produced outstanding results, but this has not been reflected in players coming through into the First Team squad. There are high hopes for George Earthy and I would hope others too can get opportunities in the squad. Hopefully the new head coach will be able to bring on the youngsters more than has happened in recent times.

We’ve been known to spoil a Manchester party in the past but it is hard to imagine us halting the City celebrations this time around. At the end of the game at Tottenham they were celebrating as if the title was already theirs with just little old West Ham with the fragile defence to come in the final game. They were preparing their abacuses to take to the game.

Unlike a number of social media posts I’ve read where supposed West Ham fans want us to lose to deprive Arsenal of the title, because of their dislike or hatred of Arsenal and the Rice factor, I am in the opposite camp. You are entitled to your opinion but I hold an entirely different view. I may dislike some teams, but hate? No.

I would never ever want us to lose a game to influence what happens elsewhere. To any of you who want us to lose why not consider the bigger picture? If we did manage to hold or even (very unlikely) beat Manchester City then just think how brassed off Tottenham fans will be that Arsenal have won the title and West Ham were largely responsible for that happening. Surely you dislike Tottenham even more than Arsenal?

I always want us to win every game we play. I have no problems with Declan Rice and wish him well – he did a great job in a West Ham shirt. Personally I’d be more than happy if the Manchester City domination of the Premier League title was broken.

But realistically it would take a miracle. But miracles do happen very occasionally. Bookmakers have City at 1/12 to win the game (and the title) with West Ham at 20/1 and the draw at 11/1.

An interesting summer lies ahead.

West Ham Play Cameo Role In End Of The Piers Show

The curtain comes down on another Premier League season with the Hammers involved in final day drama at The Etihad. Is there any chance of derailing a fourth successive title for Manchester City?

So here we are again. The final Premier League weekend of the season and the now traditional shifting of the weekend’s fixtures so that supporters must make their way home on Sunday rail replacement bus services once the action is over.

With almost all of the league’s placings now settled, TV executives at least have a theoretical title-decider to ramp up the afternoon’s excitement. The helicopter will be parked up in Birmingham awaiting final instructions on whether the mad, last-minute dash with the trophy is to The Emirates or The Etihad. I say, theoretical, because all that sits between Manchester City and a fourth successive title are the serial roll-over merchants from West Ham.

The Super Sunday crew would have been furious with Son Heung-min for missing that late chance to equalise on Tuesday night. The prospect of the two protagonists going into the final day equal on points would have been mouthwatering (© Peter Drury.) Then it would have come down to a first past the post who can outscore who contest. Now Manchester City have the luxury of only needing to win by any score, in a fixture they have been triumphant in on the last seven occasions.

Among the straws being clutched at by Piers Morgan and his pals down the Hornsey Road is that David Moyes has a surprisingly good record in games against Manchester City, ignoring the fact that most of that happened while the Citizens were just another football club. When Moyes has faced Pep Guardiola, the playing field has been about as level as lion versus wildebeest.

The game will, of course, be Moyes final farewell and he may well be chuffed with a third top ten finish in four years. Looking back at my pre-season predictions I had West Ham down as finishing 13th. So, in some ways, he has exceeded my expectations. I just wouldn’t want to have to sit through it all again. At least he was able to sign off with a last home win last weekend once his side had woken up in the second half to ease past relegated Luton. No sooner had I been cursing the manager’s decision to opt for the terrible midfield double pivot of James Ward-Prowse and Tomas Soucek than both popped up to score. Yet, I shudder to think what might happen if he starts with the same pairing again on Sunday.

The decision to make Edson Alvarez the scapegoat for defeat to Chelsea was baffling. Alvarez has been one of the top performers all season and has sometimes acted alone in not treating the game passively. Maybe a ball-winner is surplus to requirements in a side set up not to have it.

It is hard to imagine Moyes making any radical changes for his last game. It will be the usual favourites playing their usual roles in the usual low block. My prediction is that it will hold out until the 17th minute – and will be downhill from there. City just have too much quality to resist the charge just by putting as many bodies as possible in the way. They will eventually find a way through, past, or around.

The best hope is that a Premier League lawyer will run onto the pitch in added time to announce that City’s punishment for 115 breaches of the rules is to award the game to West Ham. I wonder if City will be stripped of their titles if found guilty of cheating?

In conclusion, my 2023/24 awards go to:

Player of the Year: Jarrod Bowen
Best Goal: Mohammed Kudus versus Freiburg
Best Goal (Premier League): Mohammed Kudus versus Brentford (away)
Bench Warmer of the Year: Divin Mubama
Annual Roberto Shocking Signing Award: Kalvin Phillips

Wouldn’t it be nice to believe the Hammers could be worthy opponents today. Not for anyone else’s sake but our own. It doesn’t make much difference to me who wins the league. I see no lesser between the two evils. How about countering the earlier cynicism with dreams of a last-minute Vladimir Coufal winner? COYI!

Meet The New Boss, Not The Same As The Old Boss

It’s all change at West Ham in what promises to be a busy summer of rebuilding at the London Stadium. The fun starts with David Moyes farewell in a Hammers versus Hatters showdown.

At last, the moment that many have been waiting for as Moyesball faces the final curtain at the London Stadium. We’ve loved, we’ve laughed and cried. We’ve had our fill (and in the last two seasons) our share of losing. And through it all, we lost the ball, while he stubbornly did it – Moyes way.

When the news of David Moyes departure broke in the week, it was met with the inevitable social media storm of outrage from the usual quarters. Reported as if everyone had found out at the same time, it prompted a volley of charges that the club had treated the manager disgustingly after all that he had achieved during his four and a half years in charge. These claims are predicated on the assumption that those involved were unaware that a search for a new manager was underway. Oblivious to the fact that it had been under discussion months beforehand. If the club were insistent on heading down a ‘head coach’ rather than ‘manager’ route, there was no way Moyes would agree to those terms. A scenario where Tim Steidten was sneaking around in the shadows and doodling “I ♡ J Lo” on the dressing room tactics board is the type of juvenile nonsense that only someone as gullible as Richard Keys could fall for

As I have written on several occasions previously, the history books will show David Moyes time at West Ham in a positive light. That is all the majority of causal observers who take only a passing interest in the club look at when they warn us with great monotony that little old West Ham should be careful what they wish for. Rather than being derided, Hammer’s fans deserve great credit for their insistence that style and eentertainment is more important than grinding out results on a weekly basis.

The whole David Moyes tenure at West Ham has been a time of ambiguity. He didn’t really save us from relegation, did he? He only managed one more point in 19 games than Pellegrini had achieved in the first half of the season. But then the 2020/21 season was arguably the Hammers best ever in the Premier League with a record number of wins and points – and a return to European football. Perhaps nostalgia is getting the better of me but I remember the second half of that campaign as a period of exciting, fast-paced counterattacking football at its best. The following season then started in the same vein but fell away sharply in the new year – after failing to strengthen the squad in the January transfer window – despite a couple of excellent performances in the Europa League against Lyon and Sevilla.

It was January 2022 when the rot had started to set in. Moyesball had been rumbled by other Premier League managers, there was no plan B, and the manager double down on his retreat to caution. The league record since then has shown the return of a lower to mid table side – a lowly average of 1.2 points per game. Despite this gradual decline in league form, the event that will forever represent Moyes time at West Ham is the Europa Conference win. It was a fantastic moment for supporters who had been starved of success for so long. The slow motion memory of Jarrod Bowen runningon to Lucas Paqueta’s pass can never be taken away. It may not have been the most prestigious competition, but it is still silverware. The celebrations in Prague and in east London the following day showed what it meant. For many fans, it was the first ever experience of success.

Progress is a complicated concept at a football club. There have been the highs of two top seven finishes and a trophy in the past four years, but can we honestly see a club that is progressing rather than one that had a few good seasons? Would progress have left us with such a small and ageing squad? Have we seen players arrive at the club and be changed beyond all recognition by progressive coaching methods? Have we witnessed any youngsters from a successful youth setup make it further than bench warming duties?  I think we know the answers.   

Although he will not be officially unveiled until after the end of the current season, the strong assumption is that Julen Lopetegui will start work as West Ham head coach on 1 June. Whether or not he was anybody’s first choice – other than the Boards – he is now the man we need to get behind. He has a huge rebuilding job on his hands if he intends to bring his preferred playing style to the London Stadium. A fair few of the current squad are ill-equipped, either through age, pace or technical ability, to play in a possession based, high press, high backline formation. The close season will be even more interesting to watch than usual as the rebuilding begins and the rumour mills go wild.

Before that, there is a small matter of a Premier League game against relegation threatened Luton. There is much more at stake for the visitors than the few million gained or lost from each league position. I rarely have strong views on who goes down and who stays up but would love to see Luton hang on for a second season. Against all the odds it has been a valiant effort by Rob Edwards’ side. It will be a tough ask tfor them hough. Perhaps they can bring one of their Luton vans with them to help move all the low blocks out of the stadium.

It is difficult to know what level of opposition the Hammes will offer today. The season is effectively over but will they want to put on a show for the departing manager? Will Moyes spring any selection surprises or stick with the tried and tested under-achievers? My one wish is that Jarrod Bowen grabs the goal that finally beats Paolo Di Canio’s record of most West Ham goals in a Premier League season. Good luck, Jarrod!

As for David Moyes? He deserves a respectful farewell but there’s too much negativity for him to be ever considered a West Ham legend. COYI!

The penultimate game of the season for West Ham – the last chance to pick up any points?

As we go into the penultimate game of the season at home to Luton let’s have a look back to see how we have done against all our opponents (so far):

  • Luton and Manchester City have a ‘game in hand’.
  • Wolves are the only team that we have done the double over, although Luton could join them.
  • Fulham have been our most ‘formidable’ opponent, although Manchester City could ‘overtake’ them if they beat us 6-0 in the final game of the season.
  • Fulham have been the only team that we have failed to score against.
  • We have not kept a clean sheet against any of our 19 opponents.
  • Teams against whom we have the upper hand (points + goal difference) – Wolves, Sheffield United, Brighton, Burnley, Tottenham, Brentford, Everton, Luton (so far)
  • Teams who have had the upper hand over us (points + goal difference) – Fulham, Manchester City, Aston Villa, Crystal Palace, Liverpool, Newcastle, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Nottingham Forest.
  • We are ‘all square’ with Bournemouth.
  • With 2 games to go we are averaging 1.56 goals per game scored, 1.94 goals against.
  • We are currently 9th in the table (points), and 8th in terms of goals scored (56).
  • Only the bottom 3 teams have conceded more goals than us; 70 goals against is equal to the most goals that we have conceded in a season in the Premier League ever (in 28 seasons). We let in 70 in 2010/11 (the Avram Grant relegation season) so just one more goal conceded in the final two games would make this the worst season ever in this respect.
  • Our best season for fewest goals conceded in the Premier League was in 2008/9 when Gianfranco Zola was the manager.
  • With 2 games to go we have scored 56 goals – that is currently our 4th highest in a Premier League season – the most came in 2015/16 (Bilic) 65, 2020/21 (Moyes) 62, 2021/22 (Moyes) 60, 1997/98 (Redknapp) 56.
  • In the first half of this season we played 19 games, won 10, drew 3, lost 6, goals for 33, goals against 30, points 33.
  • Since then – played 17 games, won 3, drew 7, lost 7, goals for 23, goals against 40, points 16.

Three games to go as West Ham travel to Stamford Bridge, hoping for an unlikely win.

But (clutching at straws) playing them on a Sunday and on May 5th may not be the worst time to go there!

Last season was a great one in Europe and a poor one on the domestic front. A first trophy for 43 years whilst at the same time battling amongst the teams at the foot of the table. We certainly weren’t going to get into Europe via a league position. We were in the bottom three with 15 games of the season remaining but pulled away relatively comfortably with six wins and three draws (21 points) to finish in 14th place on 40 points.

This season has been almost the reverse. At the halfway stage which coincided with the end of 2023 we had won ten, drawn three, and lost just six games. We had 33 points from the 19 games, just seven short of last season’s total. We had scored 33 and conceded 30. Despite our football being less than convincing on a number of occasions the results were good and we sat in sixth place in the table and well placed for another tilt at Europe next season. In my first article of 2024 I speculated (hoped) that similar results in the second half of the season would see us finish on 66 points which would be a record total in the Premier League era with 66 goals scored (another record). 60 goals conceded wouldn’t be a record but would rank in the top half dozen of goals conceded in our 28 years of Premier League football.

So with just three games of the season to go where are we? Certainly not close to emulating the first half of the season. Incredibly we are still in the top half of the table (9th) despite in the last 16 games (as Geoff pointed out in his article this week) moving on to just 49 points, that is 16 points from 16 games. If we’d achieved a point a game over the whole season we’d now have 35, which, not quite relegation form would see us languishing in 16th, even worse than in the last campaign. So it’s just as well we collected as many points as we did up to the end of 2023.

Even now with three games left, three wins would see us bump our points total up to 58 which would be our third best ever in the Premier League. But with away games at Chelsea and Manchester City and a home game against Luton that’s not going to happen is it? Chelsea have been rejuvenated recently despite a thrashing at Arsenal, and it is hard to see us getting anything there. Luton will be fighting for their lives and Manchester City on the last day will be quite a challenge. Nevertheless as professional footballers three wins to end the season has got to be the aim. Stranger things have happened? Perhaps not.

Let me give you some hope for the Chelsea game by looking back at our record of games played on May 5th in my lifetime. None of our three FA Cup final wins came on this date. Our 3-2 win over Preston in 1964 was on May 2nd, it was May 3rd when we beat Fulham 2-0 in 1975, and May 10th when we beat Arsenal 1-0 in 1980. On May 5th 1976 we lost 4-2 in the Cup Winners Cup Final to Anderlecht, on May 5th 1979 we lost 1-0 to Blackburn, on this date in 1984 we lost 1-0 to Aston Villa and in our record breaking season on May 5th 1986 we lost 3-1 at Everton to drop from 2nd to 3rd as the final position that season.

I haven’t convinced you yet have I? Well in the eight other games played on May 5th in history we haven’t lost any of them, in fact the 1986 defeat at Everton was the last time we went down on this date. In 1980 in a Division 2 game we beat Charlton 4-1, and in 1990 Wolves were put to the sword 4-0 – remember this for Liam Brady’s final game including the magnificent goal he scored.

Julian Dicks scored in our 1-1 draw with Sheffield Wednesday in 1996, and in 1998 we drew 3-3 with Palace, a game where Manny Omoyinmi (remember him?) scored two goals, the only two goals he ever scored for us. He is best remembered for coming on as a substitute in our quarter final League Cup win over Aston Villa in 2000, although he had already played in the competition when out at Gillingham on loan. The Villa game had to be replayed as we had used an ineligible player, Harry was fuming, and sent Omoyinmi out on loan to Scunthorpe and Barnet – he never played for us again.

Four games in the twenty-first century on 5th May have all resulted in victories. In 2001 Cole, Di Canio and Kanoute were the scorers in a 3-0 win over Southampton and in 2007 (the Great Escape year) we won 3-1 against Bolton in the penultimate game of the season with Tevez scoring twice and Noble with the goals. In 2017 a Lanzini goal was enough for a win over Tottenham at the London Stadium and the following year Joao Mario and Noble were the scorers in a 2-0 win at Leicester.

And did you know that Chelsea are as bad at playing on Sundays as we are? They’ve only won once in their last 13 attempts in Sunday games.

How many famous recent wins at Stamford Bridge can you remember? With David Martin in goal we held on for a 1-0 win in November 2019 with a goal from Cresswell (the only West Ham win in the last 17 games at Chelsea), a 3-2 victory in 2002 with two goals from Di Canio and one from Defoe, a Paul Kitson goal in a 1-0 win in 1999, Dicks and (Danny) Williamson goals in a 2-1 win in 1996, Martin Allen and Moncur in a 2-1 win in 1994, and for the best one of all are you old enough to remember the great win there in the famous 1985/86 season when we thrashed them 4-0 (McAvennie, Devonshire and Cottee 2)? Just six victories at Stamford Bridge in the last 40 plus years.

It would be great to record another win but can it happen? As you would expect the bookmakers have Chelsea odds on to win the game – we are at 15/4, which is exactly the odds they gave us to draw at home to Liverpool last week!   

I won’t enter the Moyes debate today – Geoff covered that in this week’s article. My choice would be McKenna from Ipswich. It won’t happen of course. Lopetegui heads the betting with bookmakers, closely followed by Potter, Fonseca and Carrick. Three unlikely wins to end the season, qualification for Europe, and Moyes could stay! Surely not!

David Moyes Farewell Tour Heads To Stamford Bridge

Laughing like children, giving to scammers, rolling like thunder, under the hammers. I guess that’s why they call them the Blues …..

The fat lady has charged up her calculator and has estimated the chances of West Ham qualifying for Europe as slimmer than the bumper book of German humour. The singing is about to start very shortly.

In truth, most of us – those who are not pundits – have known for some time that the European dream is over for the time being. A record of just three wins and 16 points from 16 games in 2024 tells you everything you need to know if you are looking at it objectively. It’s relegation form rather than a storming end to the season. With Chelsea finally waking up and Bournemouth on a roll, even a top half finish is by no means certain.

No-one seems to care much about how events might unfold on the football pitch anyway. The managerial shenanigans are far more entertaining. It is ludicrous to swallow the official line that no final decision has been taken by the Board. They are not going to be sitting around a table on May 19 – following a ritual thrashing by Manchester City – for a performance review and to talk things over: “Under weaknesses, David, you’ve put down chips and deep fried cornetto?” David Moyes is history, and anyone with any sense knows that to be the case. There is no way back for him from here. The only outstanding matter is for the official announcement to be made. Like a killer caught on CCTV, holding a smoking gun, blood on his clothes, and DNA all over the corpse, who just hasn’t heard the jury’s verdict yet.

The news that Tim Steidten has been electronically tagged to prevent him stalking the player;s dressing room is a classic West Ham gaffe. No, it wasn’t a good idea for Tim to turn up at the end of season party dressed as the Grim Reaper but that’s German humour for you.

I find it really puzzling why the Board have decided to stretch uncertainty until the final curtain. It might have made sense while the Europa League campaign was still ongoing, but not now. I don’t see who it benefits, and it must create the most awkward of situations for both Moyes and Steidten. Trying to avoid each other like a divorcing couple still sharing the same house.

The list of potential Moyes replacements gets a little longer by the day. As with transfer speculation we can assume that all but one or two of the links are pure media invention. A few weeks back, I threw in the name of Sebastian Hoenes who I had not seen linked previously. Should that happen, I will claim the credit for breaking the news.

Of all the names so far put forward as serious contenders, Julen Lopetegui is my least favourite – but unfortunately, I have no say in the matter. So, who is it going to be? According to Under The Hammers inside sources, Hansi Flick has been spotted eating jellied eels in Whitechapel, Ruben Amorim has enrolled for an online course in Cockney Rhyming Slang, and Paulo Fonseca has been learning the words to Chim Chim Cher-ee. A lot of positive interest there, then. For what it’s worth, my money is on Fonseca.

As for the weekend’s game at Stamford Bridge it has the makings of another comprehensive battering as our old-timers are given the runaround by a rejuvenated Chelsea youth. There is nothing to suggest the Hammers have the mettle to bounce back from their recent four month atrophy.

It would be nice to think that even at this late stage Moyes would try something different – throw in a youngster or two – but it’s likely to be the usual suspects, ta rademark low block, and Mohammed Kudus marooned on the left wing. The gameplan will be to setup for a draw, which the manager would regard as an exceptional result.

The most positive outcome from the match (other than it being one less match before the end of the season) is the chance for Jarrod Bowen to break Paolo Di Canio’s Premier League scoring record. It would be well deserved.

The Hammer’s recent foray into playing short goal-kicks from the back have been nothing short of comical. In the past, the keeper would just hoof a goal kick long in the hope that Tomas Soucek would head it an opponent. Now it goes from the keeper to Zouma, to Oggy, to Zouma and finally back to the keeper to hoof it long. Excellent progress with a few extra passes to add to the possession stats. I’ve called it comical but the inability to pass, move and make space emphasises how the squad has been assembled to play one way only – Moyesball. Whoever comes in has a job and a half on their hands.

The Hammers hopes of clinging on to a top half finish is likely to come down to results the following weekend when the Hammes host Luton and Bournemouth face Brentford. The other games look like formalities. COYI!