Much has been written about West ham since they were relegated, with Avram Grant and the board, justifiably, receiving huge criticism. So here are my five reasons why West Ham’s relegation comes as no surprise.
1) They were never too good down
When they had a mini-revival in February pundits started pulling out the old cliché that West Ham were too good to go down. However, look a little bit more closely and they weren’t.
Their team for the vital relegation battle with Blackburn included Freddie Sears and Luis Boa Morte. Before his return West Ham Sears had spent about 18 months on-loan in the Championship and in 37 appearances had failed to score a single goal.
As for Boa Morte, his best days are long behind him and even then he was never that good.
It was the same story this weekend when their side included Zavon Hines, Jordan Spence and Jack Collison. Spence was making his first start for the club and Collison has only just returned after spending the whole season out injured.
2) Poor singings
West Ham’s ability to spend terribly goes back far longer than the Grant reign but this season’s summer acquisitions were extremely poor, even by their standards.
Lars Jacobsen arrived on a free transfer. In his two previous seasons the right-back was released by Everton after just 5 appearances and then let go on a free transfer by Blackburn after only 15 appearances. Questions marks must have been raised about signing a player deemed not good enough by Blackburn but West Ham decided to bring in the Dane regardless.
Other summer recruits included two players relegated with Portsmouth last season, Frederic Piquionne and Tal Ben Haim.
However, the transfers that best highlight West Ham’s ability to waste money was the £7 million spent on Pablo Barrera and Winston Reid. Between them the pair have managed just 9 league starts.
3) High wages on flops
The story of Kieron Dyer sums up West Ham’s lack of control over wages. Dyer is still being paid £83,000 a week by the club. His deal also includes £424,000-a-year in image rights. Amazingly since his arrival at the club in 2007 he has yet to complete a full 90 minutes in 30 appearances.
On top of that financial burden they were forced to pay around £2 million to get Benni McCarthy to leave the club.
However, despite money being tight the Hammer’s decided that around £73,000 was a reasonable amount of money to spend a week to get Robbie Keane to the club. The one blessing of relegation is that West Ham would have been obliged to sign Keane for £6 million if they stayed up.
4) Their experienced players didn’t perform
Many of West Ham’s squad fit into this category. Carlton Cole’s miss yesterday summed his season. Cole has scored 10 league goals in each of the last two seasons. However, this year the strike has managed just half of that tally.
Matthew Upson, their captain, has failed to perform this season as well. A few season ago he was being linked with a move back to Arsenal but now West Ham will be struggling to find a buyer for the England international.
Cole and Upson are not the only ones, Robert Green, Daniel Gabbidon and Robbie Keane must also accept their share of the blame for underperforming.
5) An unbalanced squad
They have a host of striking option with Ba, Cole, Keane, Piquionne, Obinna. They also have decent options in the middle of midfield. However, when it comes to fullbacks and wingers West Ham are severely lacking.
Their squad only has one recognised right and left-back, Lars Jacobsen and Wayne Bridge. Despite this Herita Ilunga, their first choice left-back last season, was left out of their 25-man squad.
When it comes to wide midfielders West Ham only have Gary O’Neil, Pablo Barrera and Julien Faubert to choose from. This has led to Grant regularly deploying strikers out wide.
Bringing The Game Into Disrepute 