West Ham find ourselves sitting firmly in the relegation zone with a growing gap separating us and the rest of the league. The question is: have years of poor strategy caught up with us? There has been growing despair surrounding West Ham's ownership, with everything going noticeably downhill since our Conference League win.
West Ham find ourselves sitting firmly in the relegation zone with a growing gap separating us and the rest of the league. The question is: have years of poor strategy caught up with us?
There has been growing despair surrounding West Ham's ownership, with everything going noticeably downhill since our Conference League win.
Yes, there was already a definite lack of structured investment at the club, but we had the opportunity to push on from our European success. However, a scattergun approach has seen us waste our money on signings.
Niclas Fullkrug and Luis Guilherme are the perfect examples of how we have not been able to follow through on initial plans.
The pair were bought as part of then-technical director Tim Steidten's strategy, but having paid £27m for Fullkrug and recently loaning him to AC Milan, as well as signing Guilherme for £25.5m and not featuring him in our past five squads, it is clear these signings have been errors in judgement.
They have cost us more than £50m with next to no return on investment, but are not the only players where we have made wrong decisions.
While we do have a depleted squad, our defence is one of the worst I can remember and boasts only one clean sheet this season. That came against Nottingham Forest, who were ironically managed by Nuno Espirito Santo at the time.
Fans' frustration continues to grow as points are repeatedly dropped at the end of games, many of which have come about simply from switching off and failing to do the basics. These fine margins have cost us greatly, despite performances looking somewhat better under Nuno.
Understandably, our form has put a question mark over Nuno's future at the club, but personally, I feel that changing head coach would achieve very little. Despite Jarrod Bowen doing his best, we appear to have no clear leaders, alongside limited options on the bench and very little visible fight to turn our luck around.
Now more than ever, we are relying on players to make something special happen against the odds - and for the owners to invest in ways that will save our season.
Find more from Holly Turbutt at West Ham Network
Category: General Sports
