Staring Down the Barrel of the Championship, Part One: Assessing the Damage
Needless to say, West Ham’s attempts to avoid relegation are not going well. When Manuel Pellegrini was sacked after the home defeat to Leicester on 28th December, the club were sitting in 17th place with 19 points from 19 games and a goal difference of -10.
In the six games following the appointment of David Moyes, we’ve picked up 5 points (less than the point-per-game efforts of his predecessor), dropped to 18th place, and the goal difference is down to -13.
And all of that is before Moyes faces a run of Manchester City (A), Liverpool (A), Arsenal (A), Tottenham (A), Chelsea (H) in his next 7 games, with home ties against Southampton and Wolves sandwiched in between.
It’s by no means a lost cause yet, with many of the other clubs involved in the relegation battle yet to play each other, but I’ve essentially resigned myself to going down at this point given the size of the hole we’re going to have to climb out of bythe end of March.
So, with that in mind, this is a look at the likely casualties in the squad when that drop inevitably happens, followed by a few suggestions for players we can bring in to start the rebuild in the second and third parts.
During the negotiations over personal terms on deadline day, it was reported that Jarrod Bowen wanted to have the relegation wage drop clause excluded from his contract. Supposedly that was turned down and Bowen instead requested to have a relegation release clause put in so he could leave for an agreed-upon fee if/when West Ham are relegated.
The Mail subsequently posted an article claiming that there would be a mass exodus of players at West Ham in the event of relegation, as all current players have a clause that would reduce their weekly wage by 50% if the club drop down to the Championship (at last, an example of forward planning at West Ham!).
So all of this is working on the (probably fair) assumption that anyone who gets an offer to play elsewhere next year will mostly likely take it. So let’s break it down position by position…
GK
It’s difficult to know what the situation with Łukasz Fabiański will be. He’s unquestionably been the best player at the football club during his 18 months in Stratford and consequently is too good to be playing in the Championship. But he’ll be 35 by the start of next season and it’s difficult to tell what sort of market there would be for a first choice goalkeeper of that age.
There’s also the issue of where he’d end up as the majority of Premier League clubs are set with long-term number ones. Fabiański would be a good fit stylistically and character wise at Sheffield United if they can’t nail down Dean Henderson permanently but other than that, he’d be relying on one of the promoted sides taking a punt on him or interest from abroad. Leeds desperately need an upgrade on Kiko Casilla but Fabiański probably isn’t good enough with the ball at his feet to play for Bielsa. The same applies for Brentford, although David Raya has been more reliable anyway. Fulham have settled on Marek Rodák as first choice and might want to invest their faith in him rather than chop and change their GKs like they did last time. Brice Samba has been excellent for Forest too, so maybe it’d be West Brom who would go in for Fabiański to replace Sam Johnstone, who has had his wobbles at times this season. Whoever it is, I certainly wouldn’t stand in the way of Fabiański if he wanted to leave. He’s dealt with enough shit at West Ham in the last two seasons to last a lifetime.
The January signing of Darren Randolph was a slightly strange one, a decision that reeks of the desperate short-termism that’s rampant at West Ham. Still, he’s proven himself to be an excellent goalkeeper at Championship level over the last few years and I’d have no qualms with having him between the sticks in a side seeking promotion.
That leaves David Martin and Roberto to deal with. I’d be inclined to give Roberto another shot if we can’t find a taker in the summer as his stock can’t really sink any lower than it is now, but it seems like that bridge has been burnt and he’ll almost certainly be gone. As for Martin, he plays football with all the athleticism of a cholera-ridden Victorian orphan but he’s probably fine as a bench warmer at this level, will be happy to stick around, and is presumably very inexpensive as far as wages go.
Then there’s the Nathan Trott situation. According to many metrics, he’s had an outstanding season so far on loan at AFC Wimbledon. Trott’s not only faced more shots than any other goalkeeper in League One, but has saved a higher proportion of those shots he’s faced than any other third tier ‘keeper. While that’s impressive enough, the excellent Oli Walker points out in a Statsbomb article that their post-shot xG number suggest that Trott should’ve expected to save only 72% of those shots, so he’s performing above and beyond expectation.
Which makes it even stranger that Trott has mysteriously been dropped as number one for AFC Wimbledon’s last few games. Perhaps it’s nothing more sinister than a young player feeling fatigued and needing a break in the middle of his first full season of senior football. Even so, it’s something I’d be monitoring closely. If we hadn’t signed Randolph, I’d have been tempted to throw Trott in as our number one for next season as the numbers suggest he’s ready for a higher level. As things stand, the sensible choice seems to be to persist with Randolph for a year and find Trott another loan where he can be first choice, rather than picking up minutes from the bench for us.
Action required: decide Fabiański’s fate quickly, establish a clear pecking order among the remaining goalkeepers, find a Championship/top end League One club to loan Nathan Trott to.
FB
Pablo Zabaleta’s contract is up at the end of the season and as soon as it expires, he should immediately be taken round the back of the shed and sent to the glue factory.
That would leave Ryan Fredericks as the only senior RB in the squad. He was an integral part of the Fulham side who won promotion to the Premier League in the 17/18 season but injury and dips in performance have meant that he’s never been able to replicate that in east London. As a result, it’s hard to know whether clubs would be willing to spend on him, especially given that the Premier League is currently awash with excellent right full-backs. Maybe Palace would be tempted by him as a more expansive alternate to Joel Ward as they continue to seek a proper replacement for Aaron Wan-Bissaka. If no-one goes in for him, I’d be perfectly happy to give him a shot at a level he’s excelled at previously.
But if the opportunity to sell arose, I’d gladly take it as I’d love to see Jeremy Ngakia and Ben Johnson given a proper chance. Although they both have virtually no experience in senior football, the glimpses we have seen have been unanimously positive: Ngakia handled a game against Liverpool with great maturity after a shaky start and offered threat going forward with his passing, whereas Johnson dealt admirably with an away fixture against Man City last season and was generally our best performer through pre-season last summer. Max Aarons, Jamal Lewis, Reece James, Nathan Ferguson, and Jayden Bogle have all shown in recent years that the jump from u-23 football to first team football in the Championship isn’t too large if you’re talented enough and I’d like to see the club give these players a run in the side, rather than chucking more cash at this area of the squad.
On the other side of the pitch, things are a little murkier. There have often been rumblings of interest in Aaron Cresswell in the last few windows but it’s unclear how concrete any of that interest actually was. He’s the wrong side of 30 now, so any fee we’d receive for him would be fairly modest.
Arthur Masuaku has a bit more youth on his side, but has generally been a catastrophe for us when he’s played recently. The most baffling thing is that his attacking thrust in general and his dribbling ability in particular seems to have completely evaporated in the last two seasons, which makes his defensive lapses all the more intolerable. I’m not sure there would be clubs queuing up for his signature, but maybe there’s enough raw material there to coax someone into taking a punt. If he sticks around and rediscovers his groove, he could terrorise the Championship with his ball carrying from deep. That seems like a pretty big if at this stage, however.
Action required: bin Zabaleta, figure out if there’s any interest in our existing FBs and sell them on if we can, have some faith in Johnson and Ngakia, and maybe bring in a second LB if one or both of Cresswell/Masuaku leaves.
CB
Even if we stay up, this is a part of the squad that’s going to require major surgery. The only real asset anyone would have any interest in here is Issa Diop. He’s got all the tools to be a top tier centre back but he hasn’t managed to put it all together so far. The defensive system(s) he’s been placed in have exposed his flaws but basic mistakes and lapses of concentration have blighted his form this season. Whoever picks him up from us will be getting a bargain, as the fee will surely be much lower than the numbers quoted last summer.
The rest of it makes for grim reading. Angelo Ogbonna has been a shitshow to the point where I genuinely wonder whether he’d have had a top level career at all if he wasn’t left-footed. I’d get him off the books at the earliest available opportunity. Maybe someone in Italy will do us a favour and take him off our hands.
Fabian Balbuena, meanwhile, has fallen off a bit of cliff, with his aggressive front-foot style of defending regularly seeing him get caught out of position. He remains a potent force in the air and a disaster with his passing so it’s hard to know how easy it would be to get rid of him.
I’d ship off both of those last two if the chance arose but that would leave the possibility of relying on Winston Reid (still another three and half years left on that six-year contract!) to play Saturday-Tuesday every week, which is perhaps a little ambitious for a man whose only appearance in a game of professional football during the last two years was a 70-minute Premier League 2 run out against Aston Villa in November.
The biggest issue is that there’s not much in terms of talent to promote from within. Gonçalo Cardoso is an option; he’s left-footed, had 15 Liga NOS appearances under his belt at the age of 18 and is contracted to the club until 2024. He’s been limited to PL2 fixtures and only managed to make the first team squad for cup games so far, but he’s worth developing.
Other than Cardoso, there’s only really Tunji Akinola (21, contract up in the summer, never played a minute of senior football), Ajibola Alese (19, only managed 4 starts on loan at Accrington Stanley this season) and Jamal Baptiste (has played 5 times in the PL2 at the age of 16 and has been a regular in England under-17 squads this season). It’s probably too soon to throw Baptiste in at the deep end and Alese looks like he could do with a more productive loan before he’s considered for the first team, but these are players who should be involved with the senior squad during the summer.
Action required: clean house, sell anything that’s not nailed down, try and breathe some life into the corpse of Winston Reid, give Cardoso a run during pre-season, assess how close Alese and Baptiste are to first team level, invest in at least two long-term CB options, preferably those who can progress the ball out from the back.
CM
I’m sure that you will be shocked to discover that West Ham United Football Club have major problems in central midfield. Getting relegated might finally be the straw to break this particular camel’s back and force the club into action.
First, the obvious outs. Declan Rice, despite his flaws and my general reservations about his overall talent level, will clearly have plenty of suitors -although, like Diop, probably for significantly less than we could have sold him for last summer. If we go down, presumably the option to sign Tomáš Souček permanently won’t/can’t be exercised and he likely won’t want to be tethered to the decks of this sinking ship anyway. Carlos Sánchez’s contract runs out in the summer, surely a massive blow to West Ham fans everywhere.
What’s left in the dregs? To continue the nautical theme, at this point Mark Noble is a fucking limpet rusted onto the decaying hull of the SS Stratford, unwilling to be removed even if it wasn’t physically impossible to detach him. We can probably get by with him plodding around the centre circle next season with the right players alongside him.
Jack Wilshere is still technically a West Ham player and still technically a professional footballer, but the idea of him being fit enough to participate in a 46 game season is laughable. With the relegation wage cut active, his contract is slightly less of an anchor (more oceanic terminology for you there) but who in their right mind would pay a fee to sign him or offer him terms?
Also in the “still technically a West Ham player” boat (boats, again!) is Josh Cullen, who has spent the last two years on loan at Charlton. He’s looked a perfectly adequate Championship midfielder but little more than that. Still, he could be cheap squad filler and a decent enough rotation option if he’s willing to stick around on his terms.
Conor Coventry’s struggling to break into the starting XI at Lincoln in his first loan away from the club, so it’s possibly too optimistic to expect him to play a significant part in a Championship squad next year.
This is an area of the squad that needs a lot of attention and investment thrown at it.
Action required: cash in on Rice at the earliest opportunity, beg someone to take Wilshere off our hands, look into renewing Cullen’s contract, buy a destructive midfielder, a passer, and possibly someone with some goal threat from deep.
Wingers/Creative Midfielders
Despite having poor seasons to varying degrees, Felipe Anderson, Manuel Lanzini, and Pablo Fornals are all young enough, talented enough, and have enough history of strong performances to attract buyers, so it’s safe to assume they’ll all be off.
Likewise with Jarrod Bowen — I don’t know if he successfully managed to negotiate that relegation release clause but the fact that it featured so prominently in the reports around his signing suggests that he’s not likely to stick around if we get flushed.
Michail Antonio is a bit of a funny one. In theory there should be plenty of interest in him as he’s been our most effective outfield player by a country mile this season and has wreaked havoc among top level defences whenever he’s been available. But his availability is the big problem and due to the club’s mismanagement of his fitness issues in the past, you essentially have to make peace with him missing at least 10 games a season. He’ll also be 30 at the end of March so whoever buys him is taking a huge risk on a player who is so dependent on his athleticism, which will probably be reflected in his sale price. Palace have been linked with him for ages, so maybe they’ll chuck a few quid at him if they get silly money for Zaha in the summer. If not, he’d be virtually unplayable in the Champ.
Yarmolenko’s an enigma, too. Another player who has been plagued by injuries and is on the wrong side of 30. I have a feeling he’ll be quite hard to move on unless we’re willing to take a massive hit on the money paid for him. It might be worth it just to get his wages off the books. The idea of him playing in the Championship is quite funny though and I have no idea how that would turn out.
I think Robert Snodgrass is an appalling footballer who actively makes our team worse every time he plays, but I can’t see anyone else wanting to sign him and he was an effective player at this level when he was on loan at Villa, so I imagine he’ll be kept around, if only for his versatility.
The most important thing West Ham can do in the event of relegation is to keep Grady Diangana at the club (he’s tied down to a 6-year contract so that shouldn’t be too hard) and make him the centre piece of our attack henceforth. Diangana’s been one of the standout attacking players in the division this season during his loan spell, playing on the left wing for a side challenging for a title. It’s no coincidence that WBA’s recent dip in form occurred while Diangana was out injured.
As the radar shows, Diangana combines an ability to press opposition FBs with an aptitude for ball carrying and the dual threat of chance creation/decent value shot taking at the end of those dribbles. Have a look at the sort of chances he was creating in the early part of the season to get an idea of how vital he’s been to West Brom’s title challenge:
The majority of them are passes into central locations, within the width of the 6-yard box. A striker’s dream.
Beyond him there’s Nathan Holland. Aside from scoring a whopper of a goal against Newcastle in an FA Cup replay, he’s not found his rhythm with Oxford yet. At 22, he still has fewer than 10 senior appearances to his name and as a result has a lot of catching up to do. It’s worth keeping tabs on his progress for the rest of the season, but at this point he should be nothing more than a rotation option next season if he’s involved with the first team at all. Dan Kemp is having a slightly better time of it early doors at Stevenage, but he’s in a similar situation to Holland.
Then there’s Amadou Diallo who, like Jamal Baptiste, has regularly featured in the England youth sides and has played a handful of times in the PL2 at 16 years old. Probably a bit premature to have him involved but finding him a good loan should be a priority for next season.
Action required: resign ourselves to losing the creative talent we currently have, try and find a buyer for Yarmolenko, decide where we want to play Grady Diangana next year and then fill in the blanks around him. We need at least one number 10 and probably two wingers, depending on how we evaluate Holland and Diallo.
ST
Regardless of your feelings about Sébastien Haller’s performances in a claret shirt this season, it’s clear that he’s not going to be slumming it in the Championship with us next year. Like Diop, whoever opportunistically poaches him will probably be getting a bargain and he’ll almost certainly go on to be a success as part of a better side.
Albian Ajeti has been anonymous whenever he’s actually got onto the pitch for West Ham, but it’s difficult to separate how much of that is down to being thrust into a dysfunctional attacking system and how much is down to his individual failings. I’d be happy to give him a proper crack of the whip in the Championship to see what he’s really capable of. Prior to signing for us, he was linked to Slaven Bilić’s West Brom so dropping down a level might not be a massive issue for him if he’d guaranteed some more consistent minutes.
There’s not a great deal else at the club at the sharp end of the pitch. Xande Silva has missed the entirety of the season so far due to emergency bowel surgery at the start of the summer and subsequently has missed out on a whole season of development. He’s back in training now though and scored off the bench for the u-23s the other week. I haven’t got a clue how good he actually is but he’s someone who could be in the mix as a potential wildcard, but not as a player who we’re relying on to play 30+ games.
Forgotten man Jordan Hugill could end up being brought back in from the cold. He’s hard-working and strong but technically limited, and his fairly impressive record of 12 goals in 30 appearances on loan at QPR this season is more a product of playing in a thriving attacking system (QPR create 7.2 shots inside the box per game — 5th best in the league, level with WBA and marginally behind Swansea in 4th) than his individual quality. He’s another who falls into the bracket of solid option, but not someone to pin our hopes upon.
Oladapo Afolayan has barely played any football at all across two loan spells at both Oldham and Mansfield in the last two seasons, so he can’t really be expected to contribute and Mipo Odubeko, the 17-year old acquired from Manchester United last summer, is still playing under-18 football, so shouldn’t be considered for the first team squad either.
Action required: kiss goodbye to Haller, invest heavily in one quality, mobile centre forward, possibly two if we decide to play a system with a strike partnership.
That leaves the squad potentially looking like this, highlighting just how much work will need to be done in the summer:
