The witticism on Saturday was that, for once, West Ham were not booed off at the London Stadium. Their unloved ground looked still more cavernous and soulless as the Hammers subsided to an eighth home defeat of the season. Come Sunday and, for a few minutes before Chelsea launched a comeback against Aston Villa, they slipped into the drop zone.
West Ham’s seeming participation in ‘Project Sabotage’, the attempt to either end the season or call off relegation, felt self-serving. Now their interests would be served by producing the sort of form they have rarely demonstrated in a sorry season. They have taken a mere five points since New Year’s Day.
David Moyes executed a successful salvage job after a mid-season arrival two years ago. Now their position feels more precarious. “I always felt it would be tight but it wouldn't go down to the last game,” said the manager. “We have been here and done it before. We have winnable games.”
But perhaps not immediately. While West Ham have a habit of rousing themselves against better opponents, games against Tottenham on Tuesday and Chelsea next week threaten to leave them in the bottom three.
After two of the Premier League’s most avoidable relegations, in 2003 and 2011, they threaten to add another. A capacity to produce teams less than the sum of their talented or expensive parts feels West Ham-esque. As the Olympic Stadium shows, the gulf between ambition and reality is greater there than anywhere else. None of the stragglers are spending so much funding underachievement.
Their wage bill in 2018-19 amounted to £136 million (Dh620m) and while their annual rent at the London Stadium would halve to £1.25 million if they went down, they can ill-afford failure.
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It feels a familiar pattern. There was something quintessentially West Ham about the way they managed to sustain injuries to a pivotal trio – Sebastien Haller, Angelo Ogbonna and Robert Snodgrass – in the week before the restart.
Only the defender could return on Tuesday and if he does not, Declan Rice will have to continue at the back. “He could be our best centre half and best midfielder,” said Moyes. “He gives us something in midfield but we know he is defensively sound. He has improved so much.”
It makes Rice a rarity at a club where too many have declined. Yet aspiration was apparent in the way West Ham accumulated expensive flair players. The need for pragmatism is evident in the way Moyes often prefers more workmanlike individuals.
Manuel Lanzini and Andriy Yarmolenko, who had been out for six months, were only substitutes for Saturday’s defeat to Wolves. Felipe Anderson started but was abject. The £40 million man, a former club record signing, has a solitary goal all season. He symbolises the laxness and lack of direction that became ingrained at the end of Manuel Pellegrini’s reign.
Moyes’ downbeat pragmatism may have been necessitated – seven of his last 10 games have been against top-half teams, as are the next two – and the signing of Tomas Soucek added ballast but West Ham have been trapped between two worlds: neither quite solid enough nor sufficiently potent. They seemed to play for a 0-0 draw against Wolves and then had no answer to Adama Traore.
They only mustered two shots on target. “That was one of the problems,” Moyes said. “Wolves made it really difficult to get through.”
But toughness is a theme. As Moyes noted, Tottenham have key players fit who would have missed this match were it played in March whereas West Ham have lost Haller. Now their status is endangered. “We have every intention of staying in the Premier League,” Moyes said, but they need more than good intentions.
