The reality of West Ham’s future has been brought starkly into focus today with dark foretelling of a future in the middle or lower reaches of the football league awaiting the club once relegation is surely confirmed on Tuesday night.
The enormous debt of unpaid player transfer fees – some £190 million still outstanding – and the year on year losses of over £100 million make the future in any division a scary one. “Doing a Leicester” seems to be the most oft-used expression in the media today after the Irons’ meek capitulation at St James’ Park all but condemning them to the brutal Championship next season.
But, according to the telegraph.co.uk, it is more than just the debt, more than supporter dissatisfaction that will drive the club down:
West Ham have been an unhappy club for years, playing in a stadium the supporters do not like, led by a board the fans stopped respecting so long ago they have forgotten what it felt like to be unified.
They have been a zombie club, drifting aimlessly towards this moment. They have existed as a Premier League club and little more for too long. They remind you of the Newcastle United that suffered two relegations in eight years under former owner Mike Ashley.
Unhappy, divided and a chore to follow.
West Ham supporters still love their club but it has felt like an abusive relationship for a while and relegation will confirm they were right to be worried about what their future together looked like.
Too right. We’ve walked for miles, queued for hours in the dark behind the hated walking traffic lights in the pouring rain, paid through the nose for tickets and tasteless, plastic food and £6.50 a pint p***y beer. We’ve turned up more in hope than expectation – to the worst stadium in the league – to watch entitled millionaires play woeful, joyless football with wins the rarest of rare exceptions.
An abusive relationship indeed. And many will decide enough is enough and choose to do something else on a Saturday afternoon. And with the fayre served up in the last two years, who can blame them.
A good article the rot has got worse but much started when Alan Irving left Moyes, to be closer to his family up north. The European cup win papered over the cracks. Then not replacing Rice with anything approaching 30% the player he was old useless players on ridiculously long contracts. Lopiteghi was a chaotic disaster only to be surpassed by Potter our worse ever manager. All the other stuff mentioned is spot on. The board and Nuno need to go ASAP and we need to completely rebuild it may get worse before it gets better. Maybe things outside of football will help us get rid of main protagonist
Hopefully the board and Nuno go.
Like he’s not wrong that the fans were right to vent their frustrations but he also straight up said he made mistakes himself with the selection. Like anybody thought 5 defenders in must-win matches was a good idea other than him.
And the thing is, even if there’s the biggest miracle in PL history and we stay up, (right now, us surviving would be a bigger miracle than Leicester winning the league) naff all will improve with the same set up.
Maybe a couple of years in the championship will bring the board back down to earth & maybe realise the damage that they have done. Should never have let David Moyes go.
Our stadium will be an FA Cup final for alot of players in the Championship but it will be half empty for a lot of games. Don’t think you are going to see West Ham in the Premiership for a long while, more likely join Leicester in Division 1. Who to blame, SULIVAN! He did it to Birmingham and now he has done it with us. For those who say we are not down yet, can you see Spurs loosing both their next 2 games think not when a point is all they need.