Something to muse over
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Terminator...Tonka...Cressy..... so who is the best left back?
Forum | Non-Football Related
PM To Set Out On Operation ‘Revamp & Release'
With the season over, the full attention turns towards the window and the shakedown for the ever-ageing squad.
Not to be all political, I’m sure you can make up your own verdicts, but which PM would you rather have in charge? Kier Starmer or Potter and Macaulay? I know who I’d have my money on to steer a ship in the right direction.
It’s all well and good to observe that the club need new additions to the squad due to the sheer lack of footballing ability the club has, but behind it all, many believe West Ham are lacking personality, characters off and on the pitch and ones that can get themselves into shape. Most notably, Graham Potter stated in his post-match Ipswich interview that: “Our job is to improve the squad to make sure the culture and environment that represents this amazing club is there and then we can achieve some good things."
Potter doesn’t just need a good squad, he needs everything behind the scenes too, one of the reasons West Ham saw so much success under David Moyes wasn’t because of the play style, but it was how the squad bonded on and off the pitch, creating and bringing in players that would fight for the badge and not lay around picking up a wage. But most importantly, is that Potter recognises this, will he be able to team up with Macaulay to make this happen…? That’s only something time and sales can say.
Noble, Coufal, Soucek, Bowen, Zouma, Dawson, Fornals and the list goes on. Players, most recently, who knew what it meant to be a part of the West Ham family, some players get it, some players don’t.
We know there will be incomings through one means or another, free agents, transfers, you name it. IF West Ham are able to gather up some funding, the fate of the club lies in Potter’s and Macaulay’s hands. We had what many claimed to be a “rebuild” last year, and now we are in need of another one.
The club knows it, the fans know it, and most importantly, so does Potter. One more bad window and it could cause the club some serious trouble for the upcoming season.
Apart from all the ludicrous rumours lurking around such as our attempt to sign Kevin De Bruyne, all we do know that’s for sure is Potter is expected to involve Freddie Potts and George Earthy within the first team squad next season, players who have proven their talent in the Championship, whilst also understanding what it means to play for West Ham and the connection to the fans which is required.
Youth or not, the Hammers need some finances to move forward, it’s just a question of who will be out the door first and when is the bigger factor.
Hammers Delight As Woes Relieved
The woes are over, the season is done! West Ham have finished the 2024/25 campaign in 14th place with a win at Portman Road, Wolves were held to a draw, which saw them drop to 16th, whilst Manchester United could only secure 15th with 42 points, the Hammers finishing with 43.
We started the season with a 2-1 Loss to Aston Villa and ended with a 3-1 Win to Ipswich, completely different sides, but it’s nice to see the squad ending on a win. Ipswich were far from a good side this season, but a win is a win, and as the fans have seen, the club has struggled against the relegated sides… Southampton.
As always, the keeper has to have one scary moment in each game and Fabianski had a frightening moment loosing the ball to the attacker, but fortunately Ipswich weren’t able to capitalise on his mistake, the same couldn’t be said for the Tractors as Bowen was gifted the ball, a pass to Ward Prowse saw us go 1-0 up into the break.
In another common occurrence this season, we conceded towards the beginning of the second half, yet our lead was restored just a few minutes later, Bowen with a lovely one-two saw him lace the ball in anger off Thomas Tuchel, thundering the ball into the net to make it 2-1. The rest of the game was seen out with Kudus coming on as a substitute, making it three with a curling effort and no celebration to match the goal.
The three points launched the Hammers into 14th place, finishing above Manchester United and Spurs. Finishing 14th isn’t what anyone at the club wanted, but considering the situation we were in, the squad managed to secure the best position they could coming into the closing games.
A full circle moment and appearance for Aaron Cresswell in his final game as a Hammer, Fabianski making his final appearance, alongside Coufal. No involvement for Danny Ings.. which pretty much sums up the underwhelming career he’s had at West Ham. It is expected that a lot of people involved in the starting squad won’t be here next season and to be quite frank, it is what West Ham need.
11 Wins, 10 Draws and 17 Losses, a season to forget and finally the season is over.
Ipswich v West Ham Lineups
Ipswich: Palmer, Tuanzebe, O’Shea, Greaves, Davis, Morsy (C), Cajuste, Chaplin, Hutchinson, Hirst, Broadhead
West Ham: Fabianski, Wan-Bissaka, Kilman, Todibo, Mavropanos, Scarles, Ward-Prowse, Alvarez, Bowen (C), Soucek, Fulkrug Subs: Areola, Cresswell, Coufal, Paqueta, Kudus, Guilherme, Ings, Rodriguez, Irving
Silly Season Begins With Hammers Finances Revealed
Starting count of when silly season began to start, for the media was the 19th of May, as it has only been three days since, West Ham have so far been linked to twenty-one different players, names could be provided if needed.
Why are so many names being suddenly sparked up? That would be because our finances have been ‘calculated’. The Hammers will be expected to earn an average of around £125,000,000 for this Premier League season, which is obviously without any player sales or outgoings in the future. The earning of £125 million will be the lowest income for West Ham since the pandemic, back in the 2020/21 season.
There’s a lot of chatter around the fact that we are one of the few clubs that are close on the PSR rulings, which would make sense from an outside perspective, seeing as we’ve simply been doing a lot of buying and not much selling. That is going to change this window, as we already know Potter likes to have a smaller group of players, as well as the Sky interview affirming this with Potter claiming: “It’s not major surgery, just adjustments”
The club currently have 26 players Potter can use [This includes injured players], and without any business taking place, the numbers are automatically reduced to 22 players as Fabianski, Cresswell, Coufal, and Ings will all leave on a free, as well as Soler and Ferguson returning to their original clubs.
The club will be forced in having to bring homegrown players, as the requirement is eight and with three HG players leaving already it means we would be down to five, but if Freddie Potts were to be used, that goes to six, assuming Antonio does have his contract renewed.
We know players will be sold, but there’s no point in attempting to predict how much we will get for each player, how many years the transfer fee will be paid across, etc, there are too many differing factors.
What we do know is that we’re now saving a load of money via the wage bill… thankfully, Uncle Ingy is gone, as well as a few others. But we do know that before joining the club, Potter was promised backing in the summer as well as any money that would be raised through player sales. Instead of looking at the ifs, buts and maybes, it’s best to look at the facts.
Fans know a handful of players will be sold with Potter also affirming this, we understand that we don’t have a massive amount of money to spend, but we still are able to and a lot can happen depending on the offers we receive for certain players, such as Kudus, Paqueta (if he was found not guilty) and others.
West Ham have had such a bad season that we’re already bringing out all the rumours, and the window isn’t open for 25 more days; this’ll be interesting.
It was always Bollox
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Forest(30,600)Brighton(31,800)Brentford(17,300)Fulham(29,600)Bournemouth(11,500)Crystal Palace(26,100).
Roughly the capacity of those clubs above us who we are not competing with we moved to compete with Manure/Chelski/Arsenal/Citeh etc and we needed a 60thousand plus ground to do that.
Well by the end of next season we will be back competing with Millscum/Charlton and maybe even Orient....Billionaires and there bullshit have destroyed our club and do they care? of course not it's just a toy for them but for us it is part of our identity and those wankers will never understand that and will wonder why we bitch and moan about having our hearts ripped out when moved to that dump they insist is to make us better and to compete with the elite.
That is not West Ham nope not for me West Ham are a proper working mans club who people hated visiting because of the atmosphere and the intimidating nature of the Boleyn and just when the so called big boys come to play we would put them in there place and remind them to take there shite elsewhere....we are West Ham and don't come to us on your high horse pretending to be better....but that has gone now and teams come and play with freedom because the crowd are not on top of them biggest fear for opposition fans now is how to get there and will there legs last the trek! and so we get beat more often than not...i think our record there is Wins 71 losses 64 drawn 46.....we moved for that? 10 years on and we are a laughing stock all the bullshit that the crowd will be moved closer on matchdays etc a total joke and a mess that cannot be solved until that poison dwarf and everyone with the slightest link to him is gone.Vlad
Surprise Or Expectation?
At 14:15 marked the kickoff for the final home game at the bowl this season, a bright bold start from Potter’s men saw Soucek denied by Sells.
But as a continuing theme this season for us, one mistake is all it takes, all momentum was killed as Areola’s gift for Forest saw them go one up… too late to offer Fabo a contract?
It’ll be surprising to see the Frenchman as number one next season. Mistakes against Spurs, Bournemouth, and now Forest have proven to be costly. Points have been gained through Areola being in goal, but it’s also cost the club many.
The game felt Null and void until Forest got their second, and you’d have probably forgotten that they actually scored by the time the VAR check was over, SIX MINUTES it took for a conclusion! Weren’t the FA bragging about the new offside system and how it would improve games? Alongside the not-so-successful system, you can also thank Barrott for a fantastic refereeing performance, one for the ages, a complete demonstration as to why you don’t trial referees in Premier League matches
The referee may have been abysmal, but yet again the Hammers were far from good today, and it’s another ‘look in the mirror’ performance. Ipswich is now the only game to play and it’s what we’ve all been waiting for: the end of the season in sight and a closure to an underwhelming campaign.
Jarrod Bowen revived the fans’ hope with a superb touch and a crashing volley into the roof of the net, stunning from Bowen, but it would all amount to nothing as we prodded and poked Forest for the remaining 20 minutes, but couldn’t find an equaliser. Shots on target and poor decisions are what closed the game off, and all in all, the fans are just happy to be a game closer to the end.
It’s 7 days until the Ipswich game, and within that timeframe, there’s potential for even worse to happen somehow despite the fact we’re not even playing.
There will be no dramatic change against Ipswich, but who knows, we could still secure a magnificent 14th! Come on West Ham 'United', let’s finish this season on a high.
West Ham v Nottingham Forest Lineups
West Ham: Areola, Wan-Bissaka, Kilman, Todibo, Coufal, Soucek, Kudus, Bowen (C), Rodriguez, Cresswell, Ward-Prowse Subs: Fabianski, Soler, Paqueta, Fullkrug, Mavropanos, Guilherme, Alvarez, Emerson, Ferguson
Forest: Sells, Murillo, Sangare, Williams, Anderson, Gibbs-White (C), Wood, Dominguez, Elanga, Milenkovic, Aina
Is Ten Enough? Or Is More Needed?
With only two games remaining in the season and with recent announcements of some of the players’ contract renewals, our focus starts to shift towards next season.
Earlier last week, West Ham announced that Fabianski, Cresswell, Ings and Coufal will all be leaving at the end of the season. The total of the four players leaving saves the club around £275,000 per week, which is good, but this also means that THREE homegrown players will need to be brought in to fulfil the 8 homegrown player quota.
Despite those four being confirmed to leave, almost the entire squad has been deemed to be up for sale by Potter, which starts to beg the question… how many incomings are we going to have next season?
The club are anticipating Potter to revamp the club, which he’d informed them of during his hiring process in January. It is expected that over 10+ incomings are to be made in this upcoming window. We certainly won’t be challenging Nottingham Forest’s Premier League record of 21 signings in a window, but we most definitely will be in the double digits.
As well as many others, moves for Mavropanos, Guido Rodriguez and Aguerd are the three closest to an exit. Aguerd has publicly made it known that he doesn’t want to play in Claret & Blue next season, Mavropanos is unwanted by Potter, and Guido is eyeing a move to River Plate.
With all these moves in mind and many others to happen soon, you can see why a window of 10+ signings seems a possibility. We do know that Potter will be utilising some of the returning youth players; the likes of Potts, Earthy and Callum Marshall, all players who flourished on their loan spells this season.
Jean-Clair Todibo technically is already our first signing this window, with the obligation being triggered, which does take money out of Potter’s supposed budget, but there’s definitely money left over in the kitty, albeit what Sully will suggest.
Will Sullivan let Potter raid the chambers just as Lopetegui did, or is the £5,000,000-£10,000,000 transfers going to become more of an occurrence? Should we rather spend a chunk of money on a proclaimed ‘world-class’ player, or spread the money out on a few ‘nobodies’ and see where it lands…
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