Tag: #premierleague

West Ham Season 2024/25: Hopes, Dreams and Expectations

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. But in the wake of the big kick-off will it be the hap-happiest season of all for the Hammers?

The numbers are in, the deals are done, and the collection of new home, away and 3rd kits have been revealed. Now it’s time to get down to the nitty gritty business of the 2024/25 curtain raiser.

It will be a team of virtual strangers who take the field for West Ham at the London Stadium late on Saturday afternoon and then into the opening games of the new campaign. At best the coach’s preferred starting eleven will comprise only five or six survivors from last year’s ever presents. It is an unprecedented level of change usually only seen when a newly promoted club is desperately seeking to consolidate its place in the top flight. The extent of renewal that was necessary in the squad is a sad indictment of the mess left by the previous managerial incumbent. I still have to scratch my head when I read comments as to how he left the club in a good position, was underappreciated, or will be sorely missed. I trust I never have to witness a West Ham low block ever again.

On paper, the work done by Julen Lopetegui and Tim Steidten to refresh the squad on a tightish budget – without little in the way of saleable assets – looks impressive. How that translates onto the pitch will only become apparent over time. Once the players have become familiar with each other and the new style of play. A possession based game not only requires players to be comfortable on the ball but also needs far more movement off the ball than we have been used to. Attempting to play out from the back without at least a couple of passing options would be courting disaster.

The modern football supporter needs to understand finance and the intricacies of PSR and FFP as much as getting to grips with formations and tactics. While the media focuses mainly on transfer spend, the impact of player salaries cannot be overlooked. As an example, the recent transfer of Aaron Wan-Bissaka has been reported as £15 million (amortised at £3 million per annum over 5 years) while his earnings might well be in the range of £3.5 to £4 million (my estimate) for each of the seven years of his contract. Quite a commitment.

Views on the West Ham board are rarely positive but it is difficult not to be impressed by the sumer investment. And this time the spending looks to have been undertaken in a reasoned manner. In the past money has been spent, but unwisely. The current estimate of the club’s net transfer spend this window is £85.1 million. So what do we now have for the money?

The assumption is that Alphonse Areola will retain the keeper’s gloves with Lukasz Fabianski as deputy. Poor old Wes Foderingham will become the forgotten man of the transfer window like leftover Toffee Pennys in the Quality Street box at the end of the Christmas holidays. If there is a concern with the keepers, it is how well they can adapt to the passing out game having become so used to hoofing it long during their West Ham careers. Neither look the most comfortable with the ball at their feet.

With the exception of Emerson it will an all new back line. New recruits Wan-Bissaka, Max Kilman and Jean-Clair Todibo making up the defensive quartet. The two full backs offer very different styles of play and it will be interesting to see how they are integrated into the Lopetegui’s system. We may well witness a great deal more fluidity in formation than in the past with Wan-Bissaka dropping into the centre a lot more often than he is bombing down the flanks. Todibo is an exciting prospect who will hopefully adjust quickly to the physical demands of the Premier League. There has already been a little negativity over Kilman (and the price paid for him) on the strength of a few kick-about friendlies but it is obviously far too early to draw any conclusions.

Backup defenders are in short supply. Vladimir Coufal and Aaron Cresswell can provide emergency cover as full backs but the situation in the centre is more confused. Both Kurt Zouma and Nayef Aguerd are being ushered towards the exits while Dinos Mavropanos has proven accident prone inmost of the games he has played. If one or more are shifted, then there is still time to bring in another centre-back. Of those still being linked I like the sound of Nathan Zeze. Who wouldn’t want to nip down to the club shop to buy a Zeze top?

From what we have seen in pre-season, West Ham will be adopting a high defensive line. This will requires pace and alertness to deal with the ball over the top. In this respect, the Kilman – Todibo partnership will be key to plugging the leaks in the Hammer’s defence.

Defensive midfield duties will fall primarily to Edson Alvarez and Guido Rodriguez although we don’t yet know whether Lopetegui sees them playing as a pair of as cover for each other’s suspensions. At least one must remain deep to provide numerical support to the centre backs. I expect plenty of variation in the midfield while, in practice, most progressive sides now attack and defend as a team rather than being setup in rigid formations. Maybe Lucas Paqueta will also be deployed deeper in certain games where circumstances dictate.

Remaining candidates for defensive midfield duties are Tomas Soucek, James Ward-Prowse and potentially Andy Irving – provided they survive the transfer window cull. None have the look of regular starters to me but can make valuable contributions from the bench.

Attacking midfield provides the greatest selection conundrum with Paqueta, Jarrod Bowen, Mohammed Kudus, and “Jimmy” Summerville competing for three starting berths – with Luis Guilherme waiting in the wings to get Premier League minutes under his belt. Finding the right balance will be a challenge, especially in getting the best out of Kudus who (until now) has looked at his least effective when deployed on the left. But it would be a huge call to play him in place of Bowen or Paqueta on the right or in the centre resepctively.

This leaves finding a way to accommodate Summerville who is the one player capable of thriving out left while also contributing a decent goal return. It’s great to have option as long as the coach is able to keep everybody happy.

The signing of Niclas Füllkrug is the one that has most divided opinion among supporters, largely based on an apparent lack of pace. If the most pessimistic reports are to be believed he ranks somewhere between a snail and a glacier in speed of movement. He may not be a glamourous squad addition, but Lopetegui and Steidten clearly favoured experience over the potential of unproven alternatives. Hopefully attributes of strength, anticipation and instinct will see him make a valuable contribution in an exciting attacking line-up. It’s not only about pace!

There are outstanding decisions to be made on the futures of Michail Antonio and Danny Ings. One is likely to leave before the window closes. For me, Antonio still has something different to offer if he is happy to stick around in the role of impact sub. Ideally, I would still like to see an additional (younger) striker brought in as backup using any additional funds freed up by shipping out fringe players.

Hopes for the season are for West Ham to be in with a shout for the European places come the end of the season. A cup run would also be nice.  So much will depend on how long the new look team and tactics take to hit the ground. Offensively we should be capable of causing any opponent problems but cutting out the mistakes and the giveaways further back may take more time to eradicate. I can foresee plenty of gnashing of teeth in the opening weeks where a keeper mis-controls or a defender earns the assist for an opposition goal.

Overall, I am excited for the new season. Then again, the opening day is always the time of peak optimism. Typically, the optimism doesn’t survive past August Bank Holiday but who knows? This could be the start of something big.  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 United visit Wolverhampton Wanderers – two teams in the mix for potential European qualification.

A few weeks ago when we still had 11 league games to play I enlisted the help of the Bennett Supercomputer system to predict whether or not we would finish high enough to qualify for a European place next season. It was just a bit of fun and the final conclusion was that we needed 15 points from those final 11 games to have a chance of qualifying – this left us on 57 points in eighth place – level with Newcastle on 57 but our goal difference would be inferior to theirs, and so we’d just miss out.

At that time this was the situation:

There are probably six teams still in the reckoning to finish sixth or seventh in the final table and all have eleven games remaining apart from Chelsea with twelve. The teams from 6th to 11th are therefore:

  • 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)

And this is how it looks now. You will see a newcomer (Bournemouth) have now entered the reckoning:

  • 6. Manchester United 48 points (29 games)
  • 7. West Ham 45 points (31)
  • 8. Newcastle 44 points (30)
  • 9. Brighton 43 points (30)
  • 10. Wolves 42 points (30)
  • 11. Bournemouth 41 points (30)
  • 11. Chelsea 40 points (28)

At the time I reckoned that to get the 15 points that would give us a chance of qualification we would need to beat Burnley, Fulham and Luton, and then collect 6 points from the 6 games against Villa, Newcastle, Tottenham, Wolves, Palace and Chelsea. This could be 2 wins, 1 win and 3 draws or even (very unlikely) 6 draws. Anything more than this would be a bonus. I ruled out getting anything against Liverpool and Manchester City.

So how have we done? We only drew with Burnley, lost to Newcastle (this will be the one that we might look back upon at the end of the season I reckon), and drew with Villa and Tottenham. That leaves us needing 12 points from the last seven games that would likely be needed to reach the 57 point mark. None of the other contenders have been pulling up trees in the recent games so I still believe that 57 (as I originally forecast) could do it.

The games in question are Wolves (this weekend), Fulham, Luton, Palace, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City. Can we get at least 12 points from those? To reach 57 is now a tough ask after the points dropped against Burnley and Newcastle, but still possible for those of us with an optimistic disposition. Had we beaten both Burnley and Newcastle then we would now be sixth with 50 points, and in pole position for European qualification.

We have 3 home games and 4 away games remaining, we face two of the top three, one of the bottom three, two of the other contenders for 6th and 7th (important not to lose either of those) plus Fulham and Palace. From the remaining seven games we would need 4 wins, or 3 wins and 3 draws to get the 12 to take us to 57. That still might not be enough but would give us a fighting chance. I remain hopeful but would bet against it. I’ve got a feeling that we might just miss out. If we get within three points of qualification at the end of the campaign we’ll look back at the Newcastle game as just one example of a missed opportunity.

So that’s it – another whole article without mentioning the continuing Moyes In / Moyes Out issue that still dominates the forums. Such a shame that a lot of the writers involved can’t accept alternative opinions without resorting to nastiness and name calling. But that’s social media for you.

Can we finish sixth or seventh? What are the chances? What do you reckon?   

Three points against Burnley is imperative if West Ham want to maintain the push to have any chance of a finish in the top six or seven.

Two wins in a row after a horrendous winless run has put us back in the picture to be in with a chance of qualifying for European football for a fourth consecutive season as a result of our league finishing position. It looks as though we will need to finish either sixth or seventh to achieve this. We currently sit in seventh place, two points adrift of Manchester United and two ahead of Newcastle. Our goal difference is similar (just a little inferior) to United, but both of us are a long way short of Newcastle, so if it comes down to it, the Geordies difference is likely to be worth an additional point.

There are probably six teams still in the reckoning to finish sixth or seventh in the final table and all have eleven games remaining apart from Chelsea with twelve. I have discounted the top five in the Premier League as I believe they have enough points and decent enough run-ins to maintain those places. The teams from 6th to 11th are therefore:

  • 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)

What I have looked at next is the degree of difficulty in the remaining fixtures for each side based upon the current position in the league table of their remaining opponents. The degree of difficulty factor suggests that Newcastle have 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 took it further and predicted the results of each teams remaining games with a formula based upon fixtures remaining, categorised into teams being faced with a current position of 1-3, 4-5, 6-11, 12-17, and 18-20 given different weightings, whether or not the remaining games are 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 (i.e. the 6 teams being considered).

The formulas I used gave results as follows: Additional points achieved between now and the end of the season – Chelsea 18 points, Manchester United 17 points, Newcastle 17 points, Wolves 17 points, West Ham 15 points, Brighton 12 points.

The final standings would therefore be:

  • 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 agree with my findings and have Manchester United and Newcastle finishing sixth and seventh. But they also have Brighton and Chelsea above us with West Ham just scraping into the top half in tenth.

It’s just a bit of fun, and my gut feeling is that we’ll be fortunate to do as well as this, perhaps tenth is 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. If it was that easy then we’d all be very wealthy.

I reckon that to get the 15 points that would give us a chance of qualification we need to beat Burnley, Fulham and Luton, and then collect 6 points from the 6 games against Villa, Newcastle, Tottenham, Wolves, Palace and Chelsea. This could be 2 wins, 1 win and 3 draws or even (very unlikely) 6 draws. Anything more than this would be a bonus. I’ve ruled out getting anything against Liverpool and Manchester City. Even then 15 points might not be enough. But 15 or more points from the position we are in would give us a chance, particularly if we can at least avoid defeat against the other teams involved.

We have 6 home games and 5 away, we face four of the top five, two of the bottom three, three of the other contenders for 6th and 7th, plus Fulham and Palace. We need to begin with three points in this round of matches. If we don’t win against Burnley then we will be facing an uphill struggle to qualify. So that’s it – a whole article without mentioning the continuing Moyes In / Moyes Out issue that is still dominating the forums. Can we finish sixth or seventh? What are the chances?

Luton Intolerance: Multitasking Matchday Madness For Moyes and his Men in the Friday Night Game

West Ham travel to Luton with a chance of returning to the Premier League summit for another 24 hours. But will the action on the pitch be overshadowed by the last knockings of the transfer window?

Pineapple and pizza; football and Friday. Neither belong anywher near each other. What might have been OK for a Division 4, Southend United versus Northampton Town clash in the 1960s to get a few more punters through the turnstiles, is an abomination in the Premier League. Friday Night’s Not Alright for Football!

These days, I am no more enamoured with Monday night games either. What had started out as a major televised event is now largely used (like Fridays) to satisfy TV quota obligations for the live coverage of teams who generate little interest outside their own fan base. When your team doesn’t play on Saturday or Sunday there is a sense exclusion – overlooked in summaries of the weekend talking points, and ruled out of Garth Crooks team of the week – although the latter is de-rigueur for West Ham players.

This particular evening’s scheduling is the perfect storm of sensory overload for Hammers followers. Especially those unable to cope with the challenges of multitasking. First, to keep an eye on the Where’s Tim ™ mobile tracking app to discover where in the world Technical Director, Tim Steidten will pop up next to complete those much needed last gasp signings. Second, to interrogate Skyscanner, working out the best routes and cheapest deals on flights to Baku, Molde, Częstochowa, or wherever the UEFA suits decide this season’s Europa League group stage games will lead us. Third, to prepare for the small matter of a Premier League fixture against plucky Luton Town and eagerly awaiting team news. Which of the new signings will be starting? How many keepers will David Moyes have on the bench?

We are promised a cauldron so intense and raucous at Kenilworth Road tonight that not a single person will be able to hear the transfer window slamming shut.

Pre-match chatter for the game will be dominated by anticipation of Luton’s first topflight home match since they were relegated along with West Ham in 1992. Just our luck that once again the Hammers are cast as the supporting act for the big attraction. Pundits will be gushing over the Hatters unbelievable rags to riches story. How the phoenix rose from the ashes and how fans must access the stadium through someone’s pantry. Of course, it is a great story but not every fairy-tale has a happy ending.

During the 1980s and early 1990s Luton were a recurring thorn in West Ham’s side, unable to get to grips with the plastic pitch that was laid between 1985 and 1991. In their last 21 games against Luton (all competitions), the Hammers have come out on top only four times. A Luton side comprising such luminaries as Ricky Hill, Brian Stein, Mark Stein, Colin Foster, Mick Harford and (of course) Tim Breacker would even go on to win the 1988 League Cup, defeating Arsenal in the final at Wembley.

The last meeting with Luton was a sixth-round tie in the 1994 FA Cup campaign. A goalless draw at Upton Park was followed by a replay at Kenilworth Road a week later where three strikes to heaven from Scott Oakes saw First Division Luton pull off a giant killing against Premier League West Ham by three goals to two.

The expected Hammers starting line up today should be much the same as the one starting the second half at Brighton last Saturday. Konstantinos Mavropanos and Tomas Soucek are ruled out while Moyes will need to decide if more pace is required in the centre of defence than Kurt Zouma and Angelo Ogbonna can offer. Nayef Aguerd is an option after serving his one match suspension.

The manager’s new signing protocol will ensure Mohammed Kudus starts the game on the bench until he comes on to replace Said Benrahma at the 70-minute mark. I’m really excited at the prospect of seeing Kudus and Lucas Paqueta lining up together.

There is a smattering of former Hammers to be found in the Luton squad. Reece Burke made 15 appearances in claret and blue between 2014 and 2018 before finding his way to Luton via Hull City. Pelly Ruddock Mpanzu had one League Cup outing as a Hammer prior to moving to Luton where he has featured throughout their rise from National to Premier leagues. Finally, Dan from the Potts dynasty has been at Luton since 2015 but is unfortunately injured at the present time. Potts made 12 West Ham appearances.

The passion of the occasion will ensure a fiercely competitive game which will be a fascinating test of the Hammer’s credentials. Are we witnessing a renaissance of Moyesball, or were the last two wins a coincidental blip? The victories over Chelsea and Brighton saw a return to the faster form of the manager’s counterattacking style that was a feature of the 2020/21 season. More players getting forward and better goal scoring positions engineered. It clearly worked well against two teams desperate to dominate possession, but how will it pan out against teams equally prepared  to play without the ball, like Luton. This was where Moyesball floundered previously. The lack of guile and creativity unable to open up organised and compact defences. Maybe the presence of Paqueta, Kudus, and James Ward-Prowse can ask more testing questions this time around.

What happens off the pitch today may be far more important in defining the Hammer’s season than the game itself. If the window fizzles out without additional striker options and without upgrading the full/ wing back positions, then another opportunity will have been missed – just as it was in the January window of 2022. It is quite baffling how it has come down to the final hours to resolve such significant deficiencies.    A West Ham would take them back to the top of the table. A second one day spell at summit until Manchester City play Fulham on Saturday afternoon. Another screenshot captured for posterity. Make it happen. COYI!

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!