A significant improvement in West Ham gave them consecutive wins over Tottenham and Sunderland before Chelsea turned up in the second half at Stamford Bridge to deny them further points in their bid to stave off relegation.
But eight points in four games for Nottingham Forest means West Ham remain six adrift of safety and suggests their revival may be in vain. Relegation will likely lead to a mass exodus from The London Stadium owing to a clause in all of the players’ contracts which will see their salaries cut in half if they fail to avoid the drop.
And so we have reassigned a select few West Ham players – the 10 to have played the most minutes in the Premier League this season – to new clubs in the summer. Why not every member of the squad? We confess to not being well versed enough in second, third or ever fourth tier clubs to suggest good fits for the rest.
Jarrod Bowen – Newcastle
“I had him at Wetherby services for two hours and tried to do a deal before he went to West Ham. It’s the one that really got away, but he was virtually coming to Newcastle. And, as I said, couldn’t get it over the line.”
We wonder if anyone needs the clues provided by the timeframe and Bowen’s former club to detect that’s Steve Bruce’s recounting of his biggest transfer regret as Newcastle manager; it wasn’t going to be Rafa Benitez sweeping aside Greggs sausage roll packaging to illustrate how Bowen would fit in his XI via the medium of arranging condiment sachets in a 4-3-3.
Bruce would have done Eddie Howe a huge favour as for all the good work done by Jacob Murphy in that position, he’s not a Champions League-standard right winger, and £55m summer signing Anthony Elanga has shown comprehensively so far that he isn’t either.
What Howe wants and needs is a throwback winger who will get to the byline and put crosses in for Nick Woltemade. Jarrod Bowen is that guy.
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El Hadji Malick Diouf – Fulham
An archetypal “why have Fulham bought him for £10m?” signing before he makes 100-odd Premier League appearances without anyone noticing because no-one ever notices anything at Fulham.
Mateus Fernandes – Manchester City
He’s frequently looked like the only West Ham midfielder able to control and pass a ball with any regularity, and we can’t quite work out whether we’re being duped into thinking Fernandes is a huge talent with a very bright future because of the comparison with his bang-average teammates.
Interest from Real Madrid and other high-profile suitors suggests it’s not an illusion, though a reported £20m relegation clause offers the very real prospect that they see him as an investment to flip rather than a genuine prospect for their first team.
It’s quite the feat to fail upwards twice after being relegated with Southampton last season, and so significantly the second time should a move to Manchester City come to pass in what we suspect will be a veritable cavalcade of defensive midfielders signed with a view to being a long-term replacement for Rodri and inevitably failing in that impossible task come to pass.
Third time’s a relegation avoidance charm? When are we going to hear the verdict on the 115 charges?
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Crysencio Summerville – Tottenham
It’s taken quite some time, but Summerville’s blistering pace and impressive dribbling skills have come to the fore under Nuno Espírito Santo in recent weeks to enable West Ham to balance attacks through him on the left and Bowen on the right.
After four goals and two assists in his last five games he’s now thought to be an outside bet to be called up by Ronald Koeman to represent the Netherlands at the World Cup, and links with Tottenham in January led at least half of the people aware of that rumour to ask themselves “who the p*ssing hell plays for Tottenham on the left wing?”
Konstantinos Mavropanos – Roma
“This was not meant to happen, this could not happen… this is happening!” could easily be the reaction of the Roma fans upon Mavraponos’ unveiling, though we suspect not because they believe him to be another “Greek God” to aid them in “rising from their ruins”.
Max Kilman – Maidenhead United
At one stage tipped for an England call after making a hugely impressive jump from non-league Maidenhead to Wolves in the Premier League and taking it quite comfortably in his stride, Kilman’s performances in at least the last year, but really ever since he joined West Ham, have begged the question as to whether his four successful seasons at Wolves were a lengthy purple patch for a footballer better suited to the lower reaches of the football pyramid.
Crystal Palace making a deadline-day phone call to enquire over his availability should provide little solace for Kilman considering whom else the Eagles, with hoods apparently now firmly fixed to render vision impossible, tried and failed to sign that day.
Alphonse Areola – Leeds
Karl Darlow joined Illan Meslier and Lucas Perri on the goalkeeping naughty step after his blunder against Arsenal and what Leeds could really do with is a goalkeeper who is OK; Areola is very OK.
Aaron Wan-Bissaka – Liverpool
Arne Slot insisting at the end of the transfer window that Liverpool don’t have a problem at right-back despite literally having no right-backs may well come back to bite him in the bottom, particularly when they’ve got roughly one-and-half centre-backs to compound things, but that’s a short-term issue.
It’s not as if things were peachy in that area before the injuries to Conor Bradley and Jeremie Frimpong; Dominik Szoboszai had played there a few times already before crisis struck, and on the assumption that Slot doesn’t like Frimpong because he doesn’t really defend and isn’t keen on Bradley as he may as well start every game on a yellow card, a right-back who bloody loves defending and almost never gets booked sounds just about perfect.
Jean-Clair Todibo – Nice
The swindlers who insisted upon an obligation-to-buy clause in Todibo’s initial loan move in the knowledge that a mere option would not be taken up once West Ham saw him play football will return to offer them 25 cents on the Euro to bring him back.
Tomas Soucek – Crystal Palace
If Dwight McNeil is a replacement for Michael Olise and Max Kilman is their choice to fill the gaping hole left by Marc Guehi, who better to come in for Adam Wharton when he departs in the summer?
