Category: Season

Have West Ham’s bubbles burst before the season has even begun?

The euphoria of our European success is just a distant memory as the club are mocked by a pizza company

It is barely two months since Lucas Paqueta’s superb through ball in the ninetieth minute put Jarrod Bowen clear on goal for a winner that produced our greatest moment since 1980 when we lifted the Europa Conference League trophy. Surely that should have been a catalyst for the club to build upon? But what has happened since has induced the biggest bout of pessimism amongst most West Ham fans before a ball has been kicked in anger that I can remember. And my memories go back to the late 1950s.

Of course we didn’t have the internet at that time but even then you could sense that there was optimism amongst supporters as a new season dawned that this was going to be “our year”. It’s something that I haven’t recognised at all this time as I scoured the West Ham groups for a sense of current feelings. These groups have always had their fair share of moaners even in the good times, but these were balanced by alternative (positive / optimistic) views. I have found very few who seem to believe that we are in a good place at the start of this campaign.

It didn’t take long for everything to begin to unravel as the players headed for their holidays after the euphoria of the European success. Within days we lost two first team coaches in Mark Warburton and the highly rated Paul Nevin. A clash of footballing philosophies with David Moyes? Not a good start to the summer.

Never mind, by early July Tim Steidten joined the club as technical director. Our chairman David Sullivan believed that this would drive the football strategy of the club in a forward direction. I cannot see any evidence of this yet. To me the club has engaged reverse gear. Of course, you never know what to believe when you read social media or the press, but one view is that Moyes and Steidten are at loggerheads. Moyes, whose future relies largely on short term results apparently wants to buy tried British players first before spending any surplus on longer term, perhaps younger prospects from abroad. Steidten on the other hand has the opposite view and some have claimed he has blocked Moyes attempted buys. Alternatively, some reports claim that he and Moyes are best buddies in full agreement as to how to take the club forward. Who knows? I do wonder how the types of players Steidten has in mind would fit with the Moyes way of playing?

Within a couple of weeks of Steidten’s appointment the long running saga of Rice to Arsenal was finally over. Surely nobody believed he would be staying? Surely the club would have a plan in place to replace him and all would become evident as soon as the transfer was completed, and in good time before the new season began? This is West Ham remember!

With just seven days to go before the serious business of the Premier League began we faced Bayer Leverkusen in the final pre-season warm up game. The Germans, managed by Xabi Alonso, finished sixth in the Bundesliga last season (level on points with Eintracht Frankfurt – remember them?) and qualified for the Europa League (like ourselves). This would surely be a good test to see how ready we were for the new season. We were comprehensively outplayed and lost 4-0, sending West Ham fans on social media into overdrive.

By Monday afternoon, just five days before kick-off I looked on NewsNow (always good for entertainment!) to see if there were any transfer developments on any of the 88 players that we have been supposedly interested in this window. You know the ones, the ‘incredible’ 29yo, the ‘exceptional’ magician, the ‘unbelievable’ powerhouse, the ‘monster’, the ‘brilliant’ midfielder. It seems that Edson Alvarez is close at this time, and Ward-Prowse, Maguire and McTominay continually feature but I don’t believe anything I read until the West Ham website shows a new recruit with crossed arms in a claret and blue shirt.

Saturday’s Daily Mail quoted a tweet (or is it now an X?) from Domino’s Pizza – ‘Just Had West Ham come in again …. and not buy anything’

It seems hard to believe that anybody new will be here in time to feature on Saturday. The window continues for a while yet but how much better would it be to get our business done before the season begins? Remember the start we had last season? Three losses in the first three games, bottom of the pile and playing catch up for months while our new players were slowly integrated into the team. Some of the football was awful to watch and we were still in the bottom three with 15 games to go. Of course, all’s well that ends well, and the season certainly ended well with our European success. And Bournemouth for the first game is a more hopeful opener than Manchester City was last time. Can we repeat 4-0? You can get around 50/1 or 60/1 from the bookmakers if you think so. Not particularly generous odds for such a big away win. We are marginal favourites to win the game.

Traditionally I make a prediction before the season gets underway as to the final league positions. So here goes – Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester United, Chelsea, Aston Villa, Brighton, Tottenham, West Ham, Brentford, Burnley, Everton, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Wolves, Forest, Bournemouth, Sheffield United, Luton.

Tenth for West Ham. That’s about as optimistic as I can get!

Carry On Up The Transfer Window: A London Stadium Farce

Just over a week to go and the omens are looking bad for a new season of discontent. Who’s to blame for raining on the cup-winning parade?

A theoretical debate that occasionally comes up online is whether supporters would choose a cup win over being relegated. Personally, I’d consider it too big a sacrifice, but others have different perspectives. After all, there’s no greater joy in football than the thrill of a cup final success.

In many ways, what we have now at West Ham is a watered-down variant of this dilemma. Although attempting to second guess what goes on between David Sullivan’s ears is dangerous territory, there is every chance that our manager would now be down the job centre had his team not been victorious in Prague.

Finding a David Moyes advocate among West Ham supporters is now as rare as spotting the abominable snowman. If they exist in any significant numbers among the fan base, they are keeping quiet about it. From the outside it must look strange that a manager who delivered a first trophy in 43 years and has overseen three successive European campaigns is so widely unappreciated. But theirs is a view formed independently of emotional attachment with the uninspiring style of football served up on the pitch.

Moyes is a relic of bygone age of managers. Footballing fogeys such as Allardyce, Pulis, Bruce, Hughes, and Warnock whose tactics and horizons rarely ventured beyond survival. He is the last man standing, attempting to defy the rising tide of progressive play like a modern-day Canute. Even Roy Of The Palace leaves Moyes in the shadows when it comes to fresh ideas. Whichever way you look at it, there surely cannot be any future for him at the club beyond this season – the last year of his contract. Making it until the end of the year would be astonishing.

And that brings us to the simultaneous tragedy and farce of the summer transfer window. An apparent recruitment by committee that at time of writing has yet to yield a single result – and the new season just over a week away. We are still no closer in understanding who is responsible for what on transfers, or what the priorities are. The Venn diagram of players acceptable to both Moyes and Tim Steidten that also satisfy Sullivan’s bank balance features only Dennis Zakaria at its intersection.

The standoff is presumably between Moyes desire to bring in players capable of hitting the ground running and Steidten’s brief of introducing a forward-looking transfer strategy. The two clearly don’t need to be mutually exclusive despite being presented that way. There are plenty of options out there between the extremes of untested teenagers and sunsetting 30-year-olds. The squad already has a wealth of experience. What it is lacking is youth, pace, mobility, and flair.

A club like West Ham should not be paying big money for players at the end of their careers. There is no future in such an approach and Sullivan is right not to pay over the odds for those with no likely resale value in a year or two’s time. Equally, the record of signing expensive established ‘flops’ – Anderson, Haller, Vlasic, and the soon to be departed Scamacca – and selling at huge discounts is just as unsustainable.

The promise that Steidten’s appointment could herald a methodical, reasoned, and professional approach to recruitment is threatened by the hubris of Sullivan and the stubbornness of Moyes. Unfortunately, the only person who can clear the blockage is Sullivan himself. If the alleged Moyes veto on transfers is a contractual stipulation – didn’t Curbishley have something similar that allowed him to claim constructive dismissal – then it or he needs to be removed immediately. Why let a lame duck manager dictate transfer spend and allow him to burden the club with the hefty wages and long contracts of declining players for years to come?

What will happen between now and the end of the window on September 1st is anyone’s guess. Where clubs are desperate to sell then asking prices will reduce. But where there is no imperative to sell, prices may just as easily go up as buying clubs become more desperate. No doubt there will be signings, but the probability of panic buys rises as the deadline approaches. With even more rumoured outgoings on the cards – Scamacca, Cresswell, Antonio – the risk of a below strength squad is high, both in numbers and quality. To my mind the squad is short of six or seven quality players, but I see no way that such a target can be achieved on past performance .

I see no other scenario than a shockingly poor start to the season from an under prepared side. If, and when, signings are made, Moyes will be hesitant to play them for the opening month or so. With vacancies on the coaching staff also unfilled, it has the feel of a season written off before it has begun. Two or three points from the opening half a dozen games if we are lucky.

Creating such a pessimistic state of affairs within a few months of wining the Conference League final is quite staggering. But West Ham has been a terribly run club for as long as I can remember. The irony being that the level of competence and ambition shown is inversely proportional to the loyalty and passion of the fans. It can’t get any worse, can it? COYI!

Europa Champions, Silverware, Moyes and Rice: Where Do West Ham Go From Here?

A week of untold joy for Hammers fans across the globe. Is this just a random act in history, or can it be the start of lasting east-end legacy?

Oh, what a night. Why’d it take so long to see the light? The thrill, the buzz and the pinching ourselves after last week’s famous victory has slowly started to fade away – but how sweet to witness the pent-up joy and emotion that was released when the final whistle blew in Prague on Wednesday night.

Any doubts that the Europa Conference League wasn’t a major trophy were swept away in a wave of a celebration and euphoria that spread from the Fortuna Arena to the streets of east London to the hordes of happy Hammers living around the world. What a fabulously supported club this is. And what devotion, passion, and commitment from a following that has been starved of success for so many years.

A first European trophy for 58 years, the first silverware for 43 years and West Ham joining the alternative big six of Premier League clubs to have won a UEFA title. There was no questioning what victory meant to players, coaches, and supporters alike.

As with many finals, the game itself was instantly forgettable – aside from the manner of victory, that is. A last-minute winner and the anxious wait for VAR couldn’t have been better scripted. As the dust settled, several new generations of West Ham fans (anyone under 50) can now proudly tick-off experiencing a West Ham trophy win from their lifetime to-do lists.

But the world of football does not stand still. The fixtures for the new season are revealed tomorrow morning and the 2023/24 season starts in just 60 days’ time. Those two months may prove to be a pivotal time at the club as they seek to refresh an ageing squad into one capable of competing in both Premier and Europa Leagues.

It was no surprise in the aftermath of the historic trophy win to learn that David Moyes would stay to fight another season at West Ham. It would have been a harsh decision to remove the manager who had just delivered a first trophy since 1980. But that victory does not erase what was otherwise an atrocious league season. In terms of defeats (20 out of 38 games) and goals scored (42) it was among the Hammers worst ever Premier League seasons.

There is a disconnect between those who regularly sit through games and those who follow the results in the media. On paper, the achievements of the last three seasons look excellent – two top seven finishes and three European campaigns on the trot is unprecedented for the club. But on the pitch we are not seeing entertainment and the approach is riddled with caution and fear. Unless that changes, Moyes will never be able to win over the fans.

Despite being critical of Moyes brand of football, it would be churlish not to share his excitement or acknowledge his role in achieving victory in Prague. It’s a fact of modern footballing life, with its concentration of power in the few, that not many managers get to add a major honour to their CV these days. And it was apparent from the celebrations that a great spirit exists between the manager and his players – contrary to the dour and distant reputation that is often painted.

The West Ham board have received widespread praise for sticking with Moyes and maybe the outcome did justify the decision. We can never know for sure. A change of manager may still have won the Conference and finished half a dozen places higher in the league. Or we may have been relegated! Impossible to tell with any certainty!

Sadly, I don’t have high hopes that Moyes is open to new ideas as to how to play football. He maintains that he had tried something new in the early part of last season, but whatever it was it passed me by. As he enters the final year of his contract it will be interesting to see if he becomes any less cautious. I fear not but possibly there will be clues in the player recruitment?

A few weeks before the end of the season, the manager was talking about tweaks in the transfer window rather than the wholesale arrivals seen the previous summer. With the imminent departure of Declan Rice, question marks over the future of Gianluca Scamacca, and several other players – Manuel Lanzini, Angelo Ogbonna, Michail Antonio, Aaron Cresswell, Danny Ings, and Lukasz Fabianski – all at the wrong end of the age and fitness scale, that sounds like a recipe for disaster. Add in an injury prone Kurt Zouma and the rebuilding task feels massive. I make that a minimum of six new players for the first team squad.

It seems it will only be a matter of time before Rice is being paraded in an Arsenal/ Manchester United/ Chelsea shirt. He has been very diplomatic and respectful in stating that he is a West Ham player, until he isn’t. But the tactless Chairman has already spilled the beans that he needs to be sold as the club cannot afford to let him run his contract down any further. Rice has been the heartbeat of the side for the past three seasons and will be a hard act to follow. His importance on the pitch is so much more than as a defensive midfielder – where he has excelled with a sublime ability to read of the game. He has also been the main man for carrying the ball forward and central to orchestrating the lion’s share of attacking plays.

There is so much nonsense written about transfers in the media, making it impossible to separate the feasible from the fanciful. We can only speculate whether the club has a well-thought-out plan to improve the squad – one that has an eye on both immediate needs and longer-term development. Past performance suggests that is unlikely and that we will again rely on agents rather than a comprehensive scouting network. The talk of bringing in a Director of Football has suddenly gone quiet with The Guardian now reporting that it is being reconsidered following discussions between Sullivan and Moyes.

A recurring theme has been that the focus of transfer activity will be on players with Premier League experience. A reaction, no doubt, to the poor return from last summer’s transfer window. But I do wonder how much of the failure to ‘hit the ground running’ was due to the absence of that experience. Or whether the integration was badly planned or managed. With football increasingly ‘systemised’ adjustment might equally be attributed to adapting to a system rather than a country – Jack Grealish taking a year to flourish at Manchester City is an example.

Buying the right players to fit specific needs or positions on the pitch is the ideal and sensible solution, regardless of where they now play. The £100 million from the sale of Rice will not go far when restricting your options to proven PL players – unless there are fire sale bargains from relegated clubs to be had, or we want to pick a few more past their bests (see D Ings).

It will be an interesting couple of months. As well as finding a suitable replacement for Rice, we cannot forget the club’s long running and continued struggle with striker recruitments. It is the most difficult position to fill in the best of circumstances but in the way that West Ham currently play, finding a suitable candidate becomes close to impossible.

It is tempting to see winning the Europa Conference as the springboard for a golden era of success. But cup wins can just as easily be no more than a blip in history. Hard work and inspired decisions are required if the cup win has any hope of leaving a legacy. Let’s hope the board and management are up for it. COYI!

The (not quite) Half Term Review for West Ham United

In a normal season around this time of year, Christmas / New Year, we would be at the halfway point of the Premier League campaign. Of course this is not a normal season with interruptions to the fixture list following the death of the Queen and a World Cup played in our winter as opposed to the summer.

As we go into the final fixture of 2022 at home to Brentford we still have three league games to play before the halfway point is reached. Following Brentford we have away games at Leeds (4 Jan), and Wolves (14 Jan), with a third round FA Cup tie at Brentford in between (7 Jan).

In a normal season we would play all the other 19 teams first before embarking upon the reverse fixtures in the second half, but this time around it will not be quite like that, as our 19th fixture at Wolves will be the second time we have faced them. We haven’t yet faced high flying Newcastle as that game was postponed in Matchweek 7.

After 16 Premier League games we have lost 10, winning just 4 and drawing 2. That means we have 14 points and sit in 16th place in the table, just ahead of Everton based on goals scored (we are level on points and goal difference with them). Any team that is averaging a point a game or less is involved in a relegation situation. We are most definitely involved. Although Declan Rice believes the current position is just “a bump in the road.”

Everton are one of just three teams to have scored fewer goals than us. We have 13, Everton 12, Forest 11, and Wolves 10. Conversely our goals conceded record is much better with only Newcastle, Everton, Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool having conceded fewer goals than us. That demonstrates where the problem lies. We are not scoring enough goals, especially away from home where we have managed just four and never more than once in any game.

At home we have 10 points from our 8 games with 3 wins by two goal margins, 2-0 v Wolves, 3-1 v Fulham and 2-0 v Bournemouth, and a 1-1 draw v Tottenham. Four home games have been lost conceding two goals in each, 0-2 v Manchester City, 0-2 v Brighton, 1-2 v Palace and 0-2 v Leicester.

Away from home this week’s 1-3 reverse at Arsenal was the first time we have been beaten by more than a single goal, with four 0-1 losses at Forest, Everton, Liverpool and Manchester United and a 1-2 reverse at Chelsea. The four points we have picked up on our travels are from a 1-0 win at Villa and a 1-1 draw at bottom club Southampton.

Current form is woeful with four league defeats in a row (the same as Southampton who have recently sacked their manager); our last win was 2-0 at home to Bournemouth (24 Oct). Said Benrahma is our leading league goalscorer with 3 (2 of which were penalties). In fact he has scored our last three league goals. The last time any other player has scored a goal was when Zouma scored (a controversial?) header just before half time in the win over Bournemouth.

Bowen, Scamacca and Antonio haven’t scored since 9 October when they all scored in the 3-1 win over Fulham. Bowen’s goal was a penalty in that game; he subsequently missed one at Liverpool on 19 October. They have each scored just twice this season.

The 14 points we have amassed from our first 16 games is exactly half of what we had achieved after 16 games last season when we had 28 points from 8 wins, 4 draws and just 4 defeats, and sat in 4th place in the table. This highlights our decline since then with the final 22 games from last term and the first 16 from this one (a full season’s worth of 38 games) producing just 42 points.

The only real positive from this season has been our 8 wins from 8 games in the Europa Conference League. You can only beat what is in front of you but these victories say more about the quality of the opposition in those games than anything else.

The pressure is building on David Moyes as we have lost four games in a row, the ten defeats are equally the most in the top flight, and we are just one point and two places above the bottom three. The next three games to the halfway point of the season are crucial.

  • Can we win all three to move on to 23 points from 19 games and mid-table?
  • If we lose all three and / or fall into the relegation places will David Moyes still be the manager? Or will two top seven finishes in the last two seasons, reaching the Europa Cup semi-final last time, and qualification for the round of 16 in the Europa Conference League this season buy him more time?
  • If he goes, who might replace him?
  • Will we still be in the FA Cup after the third round matches?

The mood on fan groups on the internet certainly seems to have shifted. The numbers calling for the manager to be replaced are growing, and the number of fans supporting him seems to be diminishing rapidly. That will escalate if the current slump does not get turned round quickly.

The list of complaints about him include:

  • losing the dressing room,
  • picking his favourites however poorly they seem to be playing,
  • a lack of tactical ideas,
  • no plan B or C,
  • setting up to not lose or to hold on for a win if we do get in front,
  • making strange substitutions,
  • making substitutions too late,
  • an inferiority complex especially regarding the top teams,
  • giving too much respect to the top teams especially when we are away (he has a poor managerial record against some top clubs never having beaten them away after numerous efforts),
  • turning good players into average ones,
  • buying players not suited to the club, the Premier League or his playing style,
  • opposition teams have now found us out and he has failed to adapt or recognise this,
  • failure to give academy players a chance

Those are just a random selection – there may be more.   

He was well supported in terms of finance in the summer but the newcomers have not (yet?) proved to be a success. Aguerd has been injured (is he injury prone – time will tell?), Paqueta is obviously a good player but does not seem to be suited to playing in the Premier League, Scamacca is Haller mark 2 and not suited to our style of play, Emerson is Masuaku mark 2, Cornet seems to be injury prone, Kehrer seems to make a lot of mistakes for a current German international defender, and Downes looks a good player  but doesn’t get selected.

This evening’s game against Brentford is vital if we are going to start to recover from this disappointing start to the season. We haven’t beaten them for almost 30 years, although we have only played them twice in that time when they did the double over us last season. Despite our recent form, bookmakers still have us as evens favourites to win the game. What are the chances?

West Ham Season 2022/23 Half-Term Reports – Part One: Players F to Z

Concluding our two part half term report on the West Ham first team squad before Boxing Day’s return action at Arsenal

Fabianski: Lukasz: Hanging on as the club’s Number One despite his advancing years and the challenge from Areola. His powers have not yet shown significant decline and his strengths and weaknesses remain as they were. One of the better shot stoppers in the league but liable to be vulnerable in the air. There have been several goals this season where he ‘could have done better’ (© Jim Beglin, Tony Gale and others) but no alarming clangers have been dropped. In the context of modern day goalkeeping his kicking and distribution are woeful. A deficiency amplified by the number of rushed back passes that are made in his direction. Grade: C+

Fornals, Pablo: Impossible to fault Fornal’s energy but difficult to pinpoint what his core competencies are other than non-stop running. Too frequently deployed as Cresswell’s minder, he lacks the pace to offer true offensive threat out wide. Plays the occasional sublime through ball but otherwise his passing is as erratic as his finishing. His strength is inversely proportional to his stamina – invariably loses every challenge and seemingly lacks the power to make successful long-range passes. Always looks very happy though. Grade: C-

Johnson, Ben: At one time I would have described Johnson as the best defensive full-back at the club. But this season, performances have fallen away worryingly to a point where he has looked lost and is frequently stranded in no-mans-land. A string of injuries has not helped his development nor has being asked to switch between right and left back and as part of a makeshift central defence – not easy in a struggling side. Hopefully he can rediscover his defensive mojo but has yet to show that he has much to offer from an attacking perspective. Grade: C

Kehrer, Thilo: With the received wisdom being that players need time to adjust to the Premier League, Kehrer should be allowed some slack for a less than impressive start to his West Ham career. Thrown in at the deep end, played in every game and switched between full-back and center back, there has been little time for him to settle. Has a tendency towards recklessness but there may be a touch of confirmation bias when apportioning blame his way to goals conceded, which are rarely down just to individual error. He should improve to become a valuable squad member. Grade: C

Lanzini, Manuel: Never the same player since his unfortunate injury on duty for newly crowned World Cup champions, Argentina. He was approaching his peak at the time but these days Lanzini is more sloppy than messi. Has the occasional better game when sitting deeper and is capable of the spectacular strike. But the days of tricky runs and probing passes are filed under historic record rather than current affairs. Grade: D+

Ogbonna, Angelo: Another of the wily campaigners with a decent West Ham career to his credit. Now 34 and recovering from a bad injury that ruled him out for most of last season, Ogbonna is at the tail end of his career. Used mainly in European games, he has been limited to 27 Premier League minutes this season. However, given the hoodoo surrounding the fitness of fellow central defenders, he may well be called upon more in the coming months than originally anticipated. A huge risk as to whether he will be able to manage the pace and physicality if thrown into the mix. Grade: C-

Palmieri, Emerson: The strangest of signings which was presumably meant to be either backup or competition for Cresswell. Left back has been a long-term problem position and that was the best option available? Has the feel of a last-minute panic buy, equivalent to Moyes buying saucepans as his wife’s Xmas present.  Emerson is neither a left back nor a particularly effective wing back. In that sense the ideal replacement for Masuaku. Grade: D

Paqueta, Lucas: It would be an understatement to say that Paqueta has not lived up to the hype surrounding his £50 million summer transfer. Early signs are that he is not the game-changing, playmaker that was advertised. No doubt there is talent there but one that favours one-touch flicks and killer passes rather than crafting openings, running with the ball, and directing operations. It is a frustrating style to shoehorn into a team of such limited movement and pace. Does have a couple of assists to his name while looking indecisive in front of goal. Grade: C

Rice, Declan: Continues to be the club’s best and most influential player, despite not quite reaching the heights of previous campaigns. Has the added responsibility of being captain taken its toll or was he distracted by the glamour of the world cup? One of the most exceptional players to pull on a West Ham shirt in recent history there are so many facets to his game – tackles, interceptions, passing, surging runs – that will be sorely missed if, and when, he leaves. Has carried the team more and more to the point of over-reliance. The only player capable of carrying the ball forward at pace and under control. Quite possibly his last half-season as a Hammer is coming up. Grade: B+

Scamacca, Gianluca: On evidence to date Scamacca is a candidate to join the very long list of West Ham strikers failing to deliver in the penalty area. It’s a prophecy that’s guaranteed to come true if he remains as isolated as he has been until now. To prosper he needs others close by, playing off and around him. If the counter attacking style of football was not going to change then a player with pace prepared to run and run would have been a more suitable option – not one more comfortable playing with his back to goal. His attitude seems OK but frustration must be building. Despite everything, he is the club’s joint top scorer (alongside Bowen, Benrahma and Antonio) with two apiece. Grade: C

Soucek, Tomas: The 2021 Hammer Of The Year has seen a rapid fall far from grace as his limitations have been exposed. He is the type of player that you don’t want to have involved in the middle third where he has made a major contributor to poor ball retention and the slowness of build-up play. Still does a lot of great work defensively protecting the backline but has lost the knack of ghosting in to score at the other end – now that he is a known quantity. When the goals dried up his value dropped like a stone. Can’t think of another Premier League midfielder who looks anywhere near as awkward when on the ball – not even Kouyate. Grade: D+

Zouma, Kurt: Zouma is a solid and dependable centre back, whenever he is not injured. Rarely does a game go by when he doesn’t appear to be in some degree of agony. Will his recent surgery sort him out or will he be forever injury prone? Very strong in the air and not easily bullied, he is adept at making clearances all day long. The potential partnership with Aguerd is appealing but will they ever both be fit at the same time? Not the greatest on the ball but competent enough. Grade: B

Click here to read part one of the half-term report.

West Ham Season 2022/23 Half-Term Reports – Part One: Players A to D

With the World Cup Wall Chart back in the drawer, attention returns to the depressing plight of events on the pitch at the London Stadium. Here is Part One of how individual players were rated at the (almost) half-way stage of the season.

Aguerd, Nayef: A disappointing pre-season injury limited Aguerd’s contribution to four appearances, with just one of those coming in the Premier League. His recovery was a strategy to prepare him for the World Cup where he distinguished himself in Morocco’s surprisingly successful campaign – until he was injured yet again in the quarter final. Signs for an early return to West Ham action are said to be good but the temptation to rush him back into a creaking backline must be resisted if he is not fully fit. Looks far more comfortable on the ball than any of the other central defenders but will that be put to good use by the management? Grade: C

Antonio, Michail: Antonio has always been an erratic footballer, but his unpredictability allied to raw pace and power can make him a nightmare opponent to deal with. It is a symptom of the club’s striker woes that a player who is not natural in front of goal is the leading all-time Premier League goal-scorer, just ahead of a penalty taking midfielder. While his original conversion to striker paid unexpected dividends he has gravitated more and more out to the wing with the passing of time – a fruitless tactic for a team playing with an isolated lone striker. Used more as a second half sub this season when the team are desperately chasing the game, this season has been a huge disappointment. Could still make a valuable contribution with a change of tactics. Grade: D+

Areola, Alphonse: The French keeper has become a specialist bench warmer for both club and country. In his two years at the London Stadium, he has made just three league appearances including two stints as a substitute this season. Has acquitted himself well and competently in European matches where the Hammers managed 100% success. His penalty saving attempts in the League Cup against Blackburn did not instil confidence for any future shoot-outs. Marginally better at distribution than Fabianski. Is now the time to make him first choice? Grade: C

Benrahma, Said: A front-runner for the Hammer Of Half A Year award. Benrahma is the one attacking player who has most regularly looked capable of delivering something different, despite the manager’s stubborn attempts to keep him away from the action. Moyes appears to judge his performances against a different set of criteria to other players. Has easily been the team’s most consistent creative threat this term, but still needs to improve on decision making. Doesn’t have the genuine pace to be played primarily as a touchline hugging wing man. Grade: B+   

Bowen, Jarrod: Made a very poor start to the season by his own standards. Possibly distracted by hopes of a World Cup call-up and the international games that interrupted the summer break. There were signs of a sharper Bowen re-emerging as the season progressed, and in the recent mid-season break friendlies. His effectiveness would surely benefit from a change to the existing low block tactics which require him to do far too much defending in deep positions. Would also benefit from more variety in his play and greater fluidity between the front three. Is there any opponent who doesn’t know he is going to cut inside from the right hand side? Grade: C+

Cornet, Maxwel: Where did he go? Last sighted in early October when he was admitted to the West Ham treatment room with a slight thigh strain, he has not been seen or heard of since. A missing person’s report has been filed and next of kin informed! Cornet’s embryonic Premier League career at West Ham comprised 91 minutes across five appearances, in addition to four Europa Conference starts. Best known for a couple of glaringly fluffed open goals and the smartly taken disallowed effort at Chelsea. Grade: D-   

Coufal, Vladimir: Part of the haphazard right-back rotation project, Coufal has struggled to regain his initially impressive West Ham form following injury in February 2022. No denying he is a tenacious and committed competitor but that only goes so far at this level. Has the engine to get up and down the line but not the pace to get beyond the opposition defence nor a consistency of delivery at the end of it. Can also be exposed for pace defensively but some of that may be a consequence of how narrow Moyes deploys his full-backs – allowing copious amounts of space for opposition wide men to exploit. Grade: C-

Coventry, Conor: Coventry has been around the first team for a while now but looks destined to be little more than a bit part player. His entire Premier League career comprises a single minute against Manchester City in the opening game of this season, Has also been used sparingly in European games. Has occasionally looked impressive in pre-season games but in competition appears overly passive and ponderous on the ball – reminiscent of Noble in the twilight of his career. Grade: D

Cresswell, Aaron: May have performed marginally better this season than at the tail end of last, but it was a very low bar. Cresswell has been excellent for much of his nine years at the club, but it has been apparent for some time that an upgrade at left back was urgently needed. For some reason this was not properly addressed in the summer. Now looks to be increasingly targeted and exposed by opposition managers where both pace and positioning have become suspect. The once reliable supply of dangerous crosses has been curtailed by the inability or reluctance to get into attacking positions as frequently. Grade: D

Dawson, Craig: Everyone loves a display of body-on-the-line last ditch defending and Dawson is the master of the art. But is the need for it due to deficiencies elsewhere in his game? Has a great attitude, never shirks responsibility, and continues to be strong in aerial challenges. Moyes defensive principles are based on allowing crosses into the box in the hope that the central defenders will head clear – which plays to Dawson’s strength. Hampered by injury this season, he is not the quickest across the ground and has not been able to provide the usual goal threat to date. Something of a Jekyll and Hyde character when it comes to passing – a general sense of panic when in possession interspersed with exquisite cross-field bullets. Supposedly keen to move back north. Grade: C+

Downes, Flynn: The emergence of Downes has been one of the bright spots of the half-season. Forcing his way into Premier League contention with a string of star-man Europa performances that even Moyes has been unable to ignore. All that is required now is for him to be played in his preferred position. A busy, competitive player who loves to make a nuisance of himself but with good close control and the ability to pick out progressive passes. Needs to work on his contributions in the final third where he has yet to register either goal or assist. Grade: B

West Ham’s season so far – poor performances, poor decisions or bad luck? Can we turn it around before the World Cup interrupts the season again in mid-November?

If you’ve been away to a remote island for the past couple of months and missed the beginning of the season then a quick glance at the Premier League table will tell you all you need to know about West Ham’s start to the 2022-23 campaign. Or will it?

Certainly it’s not ideal to be occupying a place in the bottom three at any stage, although only seven games in gives you the opportunity to put matters right by next May.

But after two consecutive seasons of qualifying for European football by virtue of a top 6/7 league position we have already given the rest of the teams a head start and made it difficult to achieve the feat for a third successive year.

So what has gone wrong? Why have we only collected four points from the opening seven games? For much of the time the players on show have not reached the levels achieved in the previous two campaigns either individually or collectively. For me, Fabianski, Coufal, Cresswell, Fornals, Lanzini, Benrahma, Soucek and Bowen all fall into that category to some extent and even Rice has not performed at the top of his game, but we can’t expect him to do it all! From reading social media I know that some will agree and some will differ with my assessment.

Our new recruits look good on paper with lots of international footballers, but have they been given sufficient opportunity yet to show what they are capable of? And have we bought the right players to blend together to become a top seven Premier League club? 

Many fans believe that the manager has continued to select out of form players that have done it in the past whilst being reluctant to throw new recruits into the fray claiming they are not yet ready. New signings at other clubs seem to hit the ground running!

So many poor decisions all round have contributed to our league position. Things might have been different if officials had not ruled out (controversially) Benrahma’s goal when Antonio was blocked, not the other way round surely? Or the failure of the referee to send Forest down to 10 men with the deliberate hand ball? Or Rice’s decision to take the penalty kick? Added to the bad luck hitting the inside of the woodwork twice and we could easily have collected 3 points from the opener at Forest.

It goes on. Poor finishing towards the end of the Tottenham game meant only one point when it could have, perhaps should have, been three. There’s no way Chilwell would have scored Chelsea’s opening goal If Fabianski had not left his line at the post. The refereeing decision to deny our late equaliser has been well documented and 99 per cent of people believe it was wrong. We should have had one, and possibly three points from that game too.

True, the luck did go our way in the Villa game with the deflected goal, but the inside of a post denied us a point at Everton in an uninspired performance from both sides. There was no way we would have beaten Harland-inspired Manchester City, and as usual we performed abysmally against Brighton and deserved absolutely nothing from that game which is exactly what we got.

In a parallel universe we might have had ten or twelve points from those first seven games, but the fact is we have just four points and sit in the bottom three.

In a season interrupted by a World Cup in November/ December the powers that be decided that there should still be an early international break. The additional interruption caused by the decision to postpone football matches following the sad death of the Queen will only add to the congestion later on, but I wonder if this will work in our favour in the long run?

I wonder if the lack of games recently in a period when we haven’t been playing well will give us a chance to regroup? Will our costly defensive signing Aguerd be back soon? Will the manager give Cornet more game time? Will Downes (who was my man of the match in his only start in a European game) at last be given an opportunity to show what he is capable of? Is it time for Areola to replace Fabianski? What influence will the European schedule (Thursday- Sunday) have? Can we start to retain possession of the ball more? Will bad luck convert to good fortune in the upcoming games? These and so many other questions will be answered in the next few weeks.

Wolves on Saturday, followed by Fulham, Southampton, Liverpool, Bournemouth and Manchester United are the six league games in October. They are followed by Palace and Leicester in early November. And then we break again for the World Cup. Five of the eight are at home. 

By mid November we will have played 15 games (8 at home). We could still have four points at that stage! If that were the case we would be in deep trouble. We could have won eight games in a row and have 28 points and be challenging near the top.

More realistically I reckon we would need to have picked up at least 16 points from the next eight games to be back on course for a potential top 7 finish.Can we do it? What are the chances? 

West Ham – the season so far

We certainly didn’t hope to be at the bottom of the Premier League table after three games with no points and no goals, the only team in the top flight with that unenviable record. An opening day fixture against champions Manchester City was always likely to end in defeat despite our excellent 2-2 draw with them at the tail end of last season. In reality, despite the massive City possession statistics, new signing Erling Haaland was the real difference between the teams. Without his contribution we might have held on for another draw.

The second game at newly-promoted Forest was always going to be more difficult than many might have expected. We didn’t play particularly well but, in my opinion we were extremely unlucky not to win the game. Twice hitting the underside of the bar only to see the ball bounce down on the goal-line, a poor penalty miss inexplicably taken by our captain when surely there are better penalty takers in the team, and a goal chalked off after VAR had intervened suggesting that Antonio had impeded the defender (when surely it was the other way round?), were compounded with a Forest goal a result of poor defending, lucky bounce off the knee, and an inability to retrieve the situation in the second half.

And for some reason we just cannot beat Brighton. This was our eleventh attempt at doing so since they were promoted to the Premier League, but poor defending gifted them two goals and we were unable to break them down. When we did their keeper was good enough to repel our efforts. The Seagulls are a team that are underestimated by many and have developed into quite a force in the top flight. In Graham Potter I think they have one of the best managers around.

Perhaps injuries and poor fitness of some players, especially central defenders has contributed to our current plight? Perhaps trying to integrate new players into the squad is a factor? We continue to make signings that look very good on paper but it does take time for new players to bed in at a club. To be fair the new acquisitions have not really been in the team, or certainly the starting eleven in the league games to date. Perhaps it is continuing to select players who were not performing too well in the latter part of last season? Perhaps it is the reluctance to introduce substitutes until much later in the game than many fans would like to see to enable them to have a positive influence on the games? Perhaps too many players are just out of form? Perhaps a mixture of all of those factors plus others? Whatever the reasons we haven’t made the start to the new season that we would hope for.

Everybody has opinions, but the manager is the one whose job depends on making the right decisions. I have my reservations about some of the ones he makes, but two seasons of sixth / seventh place finishes after taking over at the club in a perilous position facing relegation, and qualification and (almost) success in Europe, should not be discounted because of three games. There’s a long way to go. If I remember correctly Pellegrini was manager when we lost the first four games a few seasons back and we still finished tenth in that campaign.

Given the fluidity of positions on a football pitch in modern times it is difficult to categorise players but forgive me and humour me in attempting to do so with our current squad. I’ll highlight 23 and for the purposes of this I’ll ignore our up and coming prospects such as Ashby, although I hope that the manager does not continue to ignore them. By my reckoning we have 3 international goalkeepers (Fabianski, Areola, Randolph) and now 7 international defenders (Cresswell, Zouma, Coufal, Ogbonna, Kehrer, Aguerd, Palmieri). We have 4 international midfielders (Fornals, Lanzini, Soucek, Rice) and 5 forwards with full international caps (Scamacca, Antonio, Cornet, Bowen, Benrahma). By my reckoning that makes 19 full international footballers out of a squad of 23 (so far). Even the four other players in the first team squad have some international recognition (Ben Johnson U-21, Conor Coventry (U-21 Ireland), Flynn Downes (U-20) and Craig Dawson has 15 U-21 caps and 3 Great Britain Olympic caps). Just 5 of the outfield 20 players are aged 30 or over (Creswell, Coufal, Dawson, Ogbonna and Antonio).

We all have differing opinions but I truly believe that we have a squad of footballers well capable of challenging for a place in the top 8 (hopefully higher) in the Premier League, in the cups, and in Europe. At least the first European hurdle was easily completed on Thursday evening with the 6-1 aggregate win over Viborg. We now move on to the league stage.

It is the job of the manager and coaches to mould the squad and produce results enabling those results to be achieved. Failure to do so will put his and their jobs in jeopardy. He has produced the goods in the past two seasons with what I believe was an inferior squad. I’m not at all upset by any of the players that have departed and believe that they have been replaced by footballers of a better quality. The manager and coaches now need to earn their money and produce teams week in and week out that have a method (and alternatives) of playing that will achieve the results that I believe a squad of that ability should be able to.

I’d also like to think that we haven’t finished adding to the squad. There are 3 players that I would be delighted if we signed one or more of them. A true consistently-proven goalscoring midfielder such as the Belgian, Vanaken, would be a tremendous signing, and Moyes has admitted we’ve put in a bid for him. Apparently our bid and Club Brugge’s valuation are some way apart and I wonder if it will happen?

I’d also like to see some real pace down the flanks and there are two players I like that would provide this. One is Sarr from Watford who I really like, but the other would be a controversial one and many will disagree with me. The other one is Adama Traore from Wolves. He has frightening pace and the potential to be a world beater, but his potential has never been realised mainly because there is little or no end-product from him. I’m sure he could be bought for a song and then it would be the job of the manager and coaches once again to turn massive potential into a top player. I honestly believe he would be worth taking a chance on if he can be acquired for a knock-down fee, and then we can see whether he can be coached into really achieving what I reckon he could be capable of. I wonder if we’ll see any of the three of them, or even Paquet (from Lyons) or Maitland-Niles (from Arsenal), both quality players that have been supposedly linked with us.

So there we are. That’s my view of the start we have made and what I believe we are capable of. My views are not shared by many on social media and that’s fair enough. We are all entitled to our opinions.

Matchday 4 of the Premier League season arrives this weekend and we are at Villa Park. That game is closely followed by fixtures against Tottenham, Chelsea and Newcastle. We could have 12 points after 7 games. We might still have zero. Or of course we could be somewhere in between. How many points do you think we’ll have? It’s time for the players, manager and coaches to really start earning their money, and for the team to start climbing the table.   

The Premier League Champions visit the London Stadium for the season opener. Is this the ideal time for West Ham to entertain Manchester City?

It seems like only yesterday when season 2021-22 drew to a close. It has barely rained since then! Of course being a year divisible by two we would normally expect a major competition in the summer break, and this time around it would have been the World Cup. But that is not the case as due to temperatures in Qatar the 2022 tournament is being played in the weeks leading up to Christmas which will have a big impact on the 2022-23 season. We’ll get the mid-season break that so many campaign for but with a difference in that many of the leading players will not be resting but exerting themselves in the heat of the Middle East.

We did have a tournament to watch though and I have to say I enjoyed it immensely, especially the climax last Sunday. Euro 2022 for women filled our football gap and the Lionesses did us proud with their excellent victory over the Germans. It remains to be seen whether the legacy of the competition will be a higher profile for the women’s game at the top level, although I’m sure it will lead to greater participation of girls at junior levels.

Anyway, it’s back to the Premier League with West Ham entertaining the champions Manchester City in the opening fixture which will be televised this Sunday, 4.30 pm kick off. What with TV plus our involvement in the Europa Conference League on Thursdays, it will be some time before we get to see a Saturday 3pm kick off at the London Stadium. Is the first game of the season the best time to be playing the team that are odds-on favourites to finish on top again? Perhaps it is. They took a while to get into their stride last season, and we gave them a good game in the 2-2 draw towards the end. I’ll begin this season’s match predictions by going for another 2-2 this time.

It has been the usual summer in respect of speculation regarding incoming (and outgoing) players at the club, and at the time of writing I remain to be convinced that the squad will be anything other than paper thin once again. But I fervently hope to be proved wrong. Nayef Aguerd seems to be a good acquisition but we know what happened in the friendly at Rangers, and following his operation it seems unlikely we’ll be seeing him for a while, possibly not until after the mid-season World Cup?

Gianluca Scamacca too is an international footballer and we’ve been crying out for ages for a top-class number 9 (who I understand will be wearing number 7). I am hopeful that he will turn out to be one of our better buys. Some of our forward purchases in the past decade (or even longer) have not really been up to scratch have they?  The last high profile Italian international centre forward (Zaza) joined us on loan from Juventus at the beginning of the 2016-17 season, our first at the London Stadium. He played eight times and didn’t find the net once before he was shipped off to Valencia, and then ended up at Torino. In 145 games since leaving us he has scored 35 goals, around 1 in 4. I’m hoping that Scamacca has a much better strike rate than that.

Flynn Downes is an interesting one and comes highly regarded by those who have seen him performing at Championship Level. But can he do it in the Premier League? And will he get the chance? With our injury record then the answer to the second question is probably yes. Bowen made the step up to the top level from the Championship so let’s hope Downes can do the same. I reckon he’ll shine if given the opportunity, but it’s wait and see. Areola made his move permanent (like so many it seemed to take ages to get it ‘over the line’) but he was already here last season and was proven at top level. It can’t be long before he becomes the league custodian and Fabianski the Cup one can it?

At the time of writing that seems to be the total of incoming players, but will the squad be strong enough to challenge for the top six as well as have another good European and domestic cup campaign? We are famous for adding players as the new season gets underway and when the window is about to slam shut so there could be more, but as it stands we would still appear to be light. Perhaps some of the Academy players who have done so well at their level in recent times will make the breakthrough? It would be great if they do, but they need to be given the chance to prove themselves.

Traditionally before the season commences I predict the finishing positions next May. It would be great if we could improve on last season’s 7th, and with Chelsea and Manchester United in some form of transition perhaps we can, although it will be difficult without further top-class investment. I reckon both North London clubs will have good seasons although I hope I’m wrong with my prediction for third place! So here I go for 2022-23:

1. Manchester City, 2. Liverpool, 3. Tottenham, 4. Arsenal, 5. Chelsea, 6. Manchester United, 7. West Ham, 8. Newcastle, 9. Brighton, 10. Wolves, 11. Aston Villa, 12. Leicester, 13. Crystal Palace, 14. Everton, 15. Brentford, 16. Fulham, 17. Leeds, 18. Southampton, 19. Nottingham Forest, 20. Bournemouth

With the new season approaching fast and expectations high, West Ham must surely need additions to the squad

I’m not really sure how many times we’ve faced the Geordies in our opening game. I do remember one season in particular, and that was back in 1973/74. We had ended the previous season in sixth place, one of our best ever top division finishing positions, and hopes were high for the new campaign. But that first game at Upton Park was a massive disappointment, which was exacerbated by a friend from Newcastle joining me at the game. We went down 2-1 with ex-Newcastle player Pop Robson scoring our goal.

Of course, we met them in the first game of last season too, but that ended in disappointment as well, as we went down 2-0. Having finished 16th the season before and then losing the opener at home to a side who were not particularly expected to do well led to doom and gloom amongst our fans, expecting a long hard campaign ahead. But of course that didn’t turn out to be the case and we made one of our best ever improvements from one season to the next, climbing ten places to finish sixth, narrowly missing out on a top four finish, but still qualifying for the Europa League.

The programme covers for the opening games of the season in 1973/74 and 2020/21(note the difference in the cost – 5p in 1973 and £3.50 in 2020

Just as in 1973-74 we begin a new season having finished sixth in the one just ended, with high hopes for the one that lies ahead. The rise from 16th to 6th must be one of the biggest improvements by any side, in the Premier League era at least. Of course Leicester went from narrowly avoiding relegation to finish as champions a few seasons back, but not many can have managed a jump of ten places, a rise that was most unexpected, but most welcome to those of us who, at the start of the campaign, would have settled for a mid-table finish, and not being involved in a relegation tussle.

So much of this was down to David Moyes and the coaching staff (as well as the players of course) People forget that when Moyes arrived at Everton in 2002 they were a bit like us, often fighting the drop. When he left there eleven years later they had finished in the top eight for seven consecutive seasons. He has achieved a top six finish in his first full season. That should buy him time to try to consolidate the club as one that will hopefully continue with top half finishes in the years to come, but that will only be possible if he is backed by the owners.

I can look back to 1984/85, in the days before the Premier League when, just like the season before last, we finished 16th. We narrowly avoided relegation by two points back then. The following campaign was our best ever in the top flight when we ended third, and only just failed to finish as champions. That should have been the time to invest in the team to push on but we failed to do so. In the two seasons that followed we finished 15th and 16th, and then we were relegated a season later. A lesson to be learned perhaps?    

It’s traditional for me to forecast (before a ball is kicked) how the Premier League will look at the end of the season. Last time I predicted a tenth place finish for us, which I thought was optimistic given the season that we had before. Of course we performed much better than I expected.

This time around I’ll be even more optimistic than last time, especially considering the added Europa League fixtures and a relatively small squad: 1. Manchester City, 2. Chelsea, 3. Manchester United, 4. Liverpool, 5. Leicester, 6. West Ham, 7. Arsenal, 8. Leeds, 9. Everton, 10. Tottenham, 11. Aston Villa, 12. Brighton, 13. Wolves, 14. Newcastle, 15. Southampton, 16. Burnley, 17. Norwich, 18. Watford, 19. Crystal Palace, 20. Brentford

But with just a few days to go before the new Premier League season gets underway we don’t appear to be much closer to adding reinforcements to the squad, which surely is absolutely necessary in view of the additional fixtures as well as the fact that the squad was thin last season too.

I was speaking to a Fulham supporter today who told me just how good their keeper was. It was a good piece of business to get him and puts pressure on Fabianski that didn’t exist before. It makes a change for us to be planning for the future, but it is imperative that reinforcements in other positions arrive too, sooner rather than later.

Of course the pandemic has meant that most clubs are in the same boat with the notable exceptions of the Manchester clubs and Chelsea, but our transfer policy in the past has been a cause for concern, and I just hope that there are negotiations going on behind the scenes to land additional quality footballers at the club.

Our pre-season has been excellent with many of our players hitting the ground running. And with a largely fully fit squad I expect a good start to the campaign. But this can only last as long as injuries to key players don’t start to mount up. For me the most important area is in attacking positions with an over reliance on the hamstrings of Michail Antonio not giving up, and lack of cover for if he is out. We’ll have to see how things develop in the days ahead. Perhaps there is a lot of activity that we are unaware of? What are the chances?