At Molineux, they sang the truth as a desperate form of dark humour. Wolves supporters, who have survived their own existential crisis, had taunted them for 60 minutes as 0-0 became 3-0 and stayed there: “West Ham are shit ole ole” on a gleeful loop. So the long strip of away fans in the Steve Bull Stand simply sang the same chant but louder.
What else are you going to do when your team has no defence, midfield or attack, when it offers no resilience to pressure and no aptitude for relieving it? You mock the self-immolation in front of you because it’s the only way to cope. And then after the game it sinks in: we really are what everybody says we are and now the music has stopped.
West Ham stand on the edge of their own cliff face; god knows we have said that before. News has leaked that Nuno Espirito Santo has one game to save his job; a story that will presumably play on loop until he loses again, which is definitely how normal, sensible football clubs operate.
Nuno hasn’t done all he should or much of what he was meant to. He has 11 points from 15 league matches; Graham Potter got 13 and Julen Lopetegui 19 from their final 15. There’s something bleakly West Ham about that, sacking managers on a loop for increasingly diminished returns. Perhaps they all simply failed to inspire or organise. Or perhaps the problems run deeper.
Is this proof of too much ambition or no ambition at all? Certainly the desire for some defensive structure hangs heavy in the air now, given it was part of the reason for David Moyes leaving in May 2024 – that “Moyes Out” banner can only be a source of regret.
But hindsight shifts that decision a little and warps it into entitlement. Moyes took 19 points from his final 19 league games, the same as Lopetegui. Him leaving was a misguided grasp at the notion that one person was responsible for decline, not everyone. West Ham attempted a fancy redecoration when the foundations were giving way underneath their feet.
The recruitment has been appalling; on that all can agree. West Ham have spent more than £550m on transfer fees in the last three and a half years and pay handsome wages. Their two major sales (Declan Rice and Mohammed Kudus), ordinarily a sign of a club getting things right, only precipitated more wastage. Those who are not yet fully tainted – Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Matheus Fernandes, Soungoutou Magassa, the two new strikers – should prepare for the worst.
Ordinarily, a club in West Ham’s position – underachieving, low on confidence, in need of a boost – would rely upon home comforts. That can happen: they still have Forest, Wolves, Everton, Leeds and whichever form of Manchester United exists to play at home.
The issue: the London Stadium is a grim church, a statue to something deeply broken and unfixable. Since the start of 2022-23 West Ham have 22 home wins, fewer than every other ever-present Premier League team over the same period. As one West Ham-supporting friend says with increasing weariness: “We haven’t really played at home since 2016”.
In these… shall we call them “testing”?… circumstances, a club needs leaders. That was the most alarming aspect of Saturday at Molineux, not a team collapsing in the first half and hibernating in the second, but the on-pitch leadership vacuum present throughout. Jarrod Bowen is many good things, but being a natural captain is not one of them. Central midfielders can lead: West Ham had a kid and a new signing there. No West Ham supporter wants to even talk about the central defenders.
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But then what do you expect? Leadership, by its very nature, flows from the top down. David Sullivan says little and has been entirely tarnished by these two years of misery. Karren Brady says nothing at all. Does anyone even know if Daniel Kretinsky, the second largest shareholder, exists such is his lack of public presence? Mark Noble is the sporting director, and even Mr West Ham has been absent.
They may save themselves again. Nuno may beat his old club and generate a little momentum. He may be replaced and a new manager generates a bounce. Clubs above and below them may continue to falter. But these are hopeful possibilities that West Ham should never have had to rely upon.
You get through adversity together and you multiply its effects by fragmenting into a hundred different parts. West Ham are in crisis again because they will always be waiting for or recovering from it until something systemic changes. When you make life so unnecessarily hard for yourself, and entirely lack the framework to create resilience, don’t expect surprise when your world crumples in on itself.
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