If Tottenham had not been in the relegation fight, a much brighter spotlight would have shone on West Ham’s demise this Premier League season.
A 3-0 final day victory at home to Leeds United was not enough to save The Hammers.
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Tottenham’s 1-0 victory against former West Ham manager David Moyes’ Everton a little more than 10 kilometres away sealed their return to the Championship for the first time since 2012.
Spurs finished two points above their London rivals.
While Joao Palhinha’s 43rd minute strike sent a wave of relief swept across north London, outrage descended on the eastern part of the city.
Instead of celebrating Valentin Castellanos, Jarrod Bowen and Callum Wilson’s second half goals, West Ham fans grieved the downfall of their club.
Many opted to voice their anger.
“Sold our soul for this s***hole,” thousands sang towards the directors’ box inside the London Stadium.
Other shed tears and mourned where their bubble had burst.
There is no mystery surrounding West Ham’s downfall.
The supporters were sold a dream, but given a nightmare.
“This is a deeply fractured club, with an angry, disillusioned fanbase, a vacuous, corporate bowl for a stadium and a flawed, underperforming team heading for the Championship,” The Athletic’s Tim Spiers wrote.
“West Ham are completely broken.”
A decade ago West Ham left their home of more than a century in Upton Park for the Olympic stadium in nearby Stratford.
They were promised it was the move that would make them a big club.
Arsenal had departed Highbury for the Emirates ten years earlier.
Tottenham already had their plans in place to demolish White Hart Lane and build their new stadium, which was unveiled in 2019.
West Ham believed they had to follow suit – leave the past behind and step into a new era.
With London hosting the Olympics in 2012, the stadium was there for the taking too.
Unlike Arsenal and Tottenham, they did not have to build the new state-of-the-art stadium themselves.
West Ham instead have paid £90,000 a week to rent the stadium, which also hosts one of World Athletics’ Diamond League events annually, Major League Baseball matches as well motorsport, rugby and concerts.
The fact it is a multi-purpose venue has always irked fans, however.
When the Boleyn Ground had a close, intimate feel, the London Stadium’s oval shape often left fans feeling like they are miles away from the action.
As a result, the noise generated in the stands did not reverberate on the ground with the same impact as at a smaller, rectangular stadium.
“It really didn’t have to be this way. West Ham have advantages that the majority of clubs across English football could only dream of,” Spiers added.
“Last season they generated £238 million in revenues, the ninth highest in the Premier League (and 20th across Europe).
“They can afford to pay wages worth a combined £172m to their players, the ninth highest in the Premier League (and 17th across Europe).
“In the past five years they have spent £654m on players, with a net spend of £317m in the past five years being, yep, you guessed it, the ninth highest in the Premier League.
“And they have the second highest attendances in the country with an average this season of 62,341 which is more than Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool, Spurs and the rest of the land, bar Manchester United.
“Oh and they didn’t even have to spend hundreds of millions or even north of a billion to build their stadium, something which arguably held fellow London clubs Arsenal and Spurs back years. Instead West Ham rent their stadium, which was constructed for the 2012 London Olympics, in return for a few million a year (sometimes for next-to-nothing).”
The only positive to come from relegation is that their rent halves in the Championship.
That clause of the deal led Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to urge Londoners to get behind the Hammers in the relegation fight, because second tier football means the taxpayer is out of pocket £2.5 million a year.
“What I’d say to Londoners who don’t support Spurs is you should probably be cheering on West Ham,” Khan said earlier this month.
“The previous Mayor, Boris Johnson, did the worst deal that can be imaginable.
“As far as West Ham are concerned, as a deal of the century where he basically gave them rent free, this amazing stadium for 100 years.
“Now if West Ham are relegated, we, the taxpayers, we City Hall, could lose up to 2.5m a year.
“So what I say to Londoners who don’t support Spurs is you should probably be cheering on West Ham, because the taxpayer will lose out if West Ham go down.”
The fact that deal was done showed that West Ham were never meant to be in this position.
Some have argued that they are unlucky to be where they are.
In a 38-game season, only three teams have been relegated with a greater points tally.
Sunderland (1996/97) and Bolton (1997/78) were sent down with 40 points, while West Ham holds the unwanted record of being relegated with a total of 42 points in 2002/03.
It is a cop out that many fans and pundits alike do not buy into.
“You can’t be unlucky after 38 games,” Premier League all-time leading goal scorer Alan Shearer told BBC’s Match of the Day.
“The fact of the matter is you deserve to go down. They’ve been really poor for long periods.
“And eventually what happens at the top of the football club, I’ve always said, it filters down onto the pitch.
“And that’s what’s happened at West Ham. Not good enough defensively. Haven’t scored enough goals. And ultimately, their recruitment over the years, I think has been really, really poor.
“So, no, they’re not unlucky.”
This season it was blatantly obvious where things went wrong.
Previous manager Graham Potter was sacked just five games into the season, having lost four of them.
Potter, who will be in charge of Sweden at the World Cup, had been under pressure for some time and arguably should have been moved on during the summer.
His winless run at home stretched to eight games by the time he was dismissed and he finished with only six wins from 23 Premier League matches in charge.
Discarded Nottingham Forest boss Nuno Espirito Santo came in, but the Portuguese manager failed to have an immediate impact.
They had accumulated just seven points – two wins and a draw – after ten games.
By the turn of the New Year, the Hammers had won three games and would need a drastic turnaround in form to avoid the drop.
The festive period was anything but, as Callum Wilson’s 93rd minute winner at Tottenham on January 17 gave the Hammers their first win ten league games.
That 2-1 victory was a rare outing of Nuno’s side making the most of taking an early lead – even if they did concede an equaliser.
In Nuno’s first 16 games in charge, they dropped points from winning positions on five occasions.
The slip ups meant they yielded just 11 points from that run despite having the potential to nab as many as 22.
But the problems began a long time before Nuno was at the helm.
“Nuno talked about how West Ham’s fate was not in their hands. But then he and his team and this club have sleepwalked to their apparent destiny in a monument to bad decisions, wastefulness and complacency,” The Telegraph’s Jason Burt wrote from the London Stadium.
“Their fans deserved so much more.”
As has been the case with clubs like Leicester City, who fell from being the most unlikely of Premier League champions a decade ago to suffering back-to-back relegations and being confined to League One next season, the poor results on the pitch have reflected poor decisions off it.
Since West Ham won the UEFA Conference League three years ago, they have seemingly botched almost every key decision they have made.
Declan Rice was sold to Arsenal for a club record fee of £105 million.
The money was not spent wisely and footage emerging online of Rice’s disappointed reaction upon finding out West Ham had been relegated after leaving the pitch following Arsenal’s champions celebrations was a real kick in the guts to West Ham fans.
“In recent years hundreds of millions have been wasted on players who have made little-to-no impact on the team, with the likes of Gianluca Scamacca (£33m), Nayef Aguerd (£30m), Maxwell Cornet (£17m), Edson Alvarez (£33m), James Ward-Prowse (£29m), Maximilian Kilman (£40m) and Jean-Clair Todibo (£34m) all classed as failures,” The Athletic’s Tim Spiers pointed out.
Now, those failures are set to lead to a purge of talent during the summer transfer window.
The club’s financial situation almost leaves them with no other choice.
“West Ham posted losses of £104m for 2024-25, the worst in the club’s history – a huge £161m (A$300m) deterioration in the bottom line, largely through poor player trading and a drop in revenue,” The Telegraph’s Jason Burt wrote.
“Those accounts detail a “liquidity shortfall” this summer (thought to be around £150m) for which “mitigating actions will be required” to pay the bills. West Ham are in danger of running out of cash and need to sell players unless the owners invest more. And now they are down.”
Manchester United great Gary Neville believes whatever happens, club captain Jarrod Bowen must be an untouchable.
The 29-year-old missed out on the England World Cup squad, but scored nine goals and provided 11 assists in an impressive campaign for a relegated side.
In fact, it is the second most assists ever recorded by a player whose team suffered the drop.
Bowen was gutted after the final whistle against Leeds and did not provide an update on his future.
“It hurts, a horrible place to be in football. Relegation for a club like this, it hurts. We did enough today but throughout the season we haven’t.
“You can pinpoint many things but when you go out on the pitch, it’s about players turning up week in and week out. Last season, we managed to wriggle out of it but we haven’t this time; we have been there all season.
“It’s not something that has just happened. The last couple of seasons, we have been below the standards. We haven’t done enough consistently to pick up the points.
“We have not been good enough and we have paid the biggest price. We thought maybe it was a one off-season, in the European season we finished 14th but no one remembers as we won a trophy.
“We didn’t do enough on the pitch to grind out results. We have been leading games and dropped points, in this league, you have to fight and earn every point.”
No West Ham supporters wants to lose Bowen.
But just as they experienced with Rice, they understand that the financial gain from selling a player, who scored the 90th minute winner in Prague against Fiorentina to give the club it’s first European trophy in 58 years and its first major trophy since 1980, is too great.
They are less sure about keeping Nuno with his at times too negative tactics questioned, but Neville believes the manager and captain can be the cornerstone of a bounce back season in the Championship.
“The manager and Bowen are the two most important figures. I think they need to lock that in quite quickly,” Neville said on his podcast.
“I’ll be amazed if West Ham’s ownership haven’t put a huge incentive forward to Nuno to stay.
“If they were smart, they would announce that in the next 48 hours. By the end of the week, you want to try and lock Jarrod Bowen in with a big contract to stay, which will be difficult because they are going to lose a lot of revenue this year.
“That then stabilises the dressing room potentially and stabilises the fanbase somewhat from where they will be tonight which is absolutely desperately disappointed.
“Those two are really important. Lock those in. You’ve also got Summerville, Soucek, Fernandes. I like the two centre-forwards, they’re a handful.
“There are players there who will be sought after by other Premier League clubs. If you’re West Ham, you’re big enough club. You’ve had enough years of Premier League revenue. You’ve had European success.
“It’s about stabilising beyond this. They have probably planned for this for a number of weeks. You’d have to, not just financially but also because of resources and personnel.
“It’s important they get some good PR messages out there quite quickly.”
It will take a lot to remove the bad taste sitting in West Hams fan mouths right now.
They are lamenting the season gone.
They are lamenting the stadium move.
They are lamenting the decision to get rid of David Moyes a year after his delivered a European trophy – even if several groups of supporters wanted him out.
“Managerial changes have been odd, from ditching the man who led them to that European triumph, David Moyes, to hiring Julen Lopetegui as his replacement (a man with a very different football philosophy) and pitting him alongside a director of football in Tim Steidten whose tenure went so badly he was once banned from the training ground,” The Athletic’s Tim Spiers wrote.
“Steidten left in January last year but still hasn’t been replaced, with co-owner David Sullivan effectively the de facto director of football in overseeing player negotiations.”
Moyes showed his class by sharing his disappointment for his former club in his press conference after Everton’s defeat at Tottenham.
“Disappointed for them. Because I think it’s dead easy to talk about teams getting relegated. But you forget about what it actually feels like. And what it is for the people behind the scenes.
“But I think what you probably need to do, take a dose of medicine and get back.
“West Ham will be back in the Premier League. Get them back as quickly as they can.
“Get them ready for when they come back and prepare them again. So, that’s all. The only positive I can think now is that you need to just take your medicine and get on with it.”
The club has tried to take responsibility publicly.
Shortly after the final whistle for the season, they released a statement acknowledging the “sad and painful moment” for the club.
“The club wishes to sincerely thank every single one of our supporters for the constant and loyal backing they have given, throughout what has been an extremely difficult and disappointing season,” the statement read.
“Ultimately, we have not repaid that support. The plain truth is that we have not been good enough. We must now face the consequences of that failure with honesty, transparency and a determination to repair, refocus and rebuild.
“West Ham United is a football club whose unique identity is defined not by success or failure on the pitch, but by the values and traditions of our roots in east London, and by the spirit of the people who have Claret and Blue in their hearts. The Club acknowledges how challenging this season has been for them and knows it must take steps to restore a sense of pride, faith and belief.
“As we have done before, we will fight with everything we have to return to the top division of English football at the first time of asking. The hard work to make that goal a reality begins immediately.”
Those words are a case of too little, too late, however.
Many West Ham fans will not be satisfied until the club is back in the top flight under a new administration.
They lay blame for this capitulation firmly in the hands of British businessmen David Sullivan and David Gold as well as baroness Karren Brady.
Sullivan owns a majority stake in the club and takes care of commercial and operational decisions.
Gold, who passed away in 2023 aged 86, was Sullivan’s co-chair and now his family trust owns 25.1 per cent of the club.
While Brady stepped down last month after 16 years as vice-chair.
They were the trio that oversaw the London Stadium move.
It is what has defined their legacy with the club and many fans have never, and will never, forgiven them.
The Guardian’s Barney Ronay summed up their time in charge by condemning a wasted opportunity to transform a club – who finished sixth as recently as five years ago – from a mid-table battler to a European regular.
“Relentless executive failure. The shameful squandering of resources,” Ronay identified as the causes of the club’s problems.
“A complacent, low-quality management tier that has been completely outflanked by highly competent middleweight clubs elsewhere levelling up in every area, while West Ham have doodled around in their rented shopping-centre annex.”