West Ham’s dismal start to the season continued on Sunday as they sunk to a fourth consecutive defeat, at the hands of an impressive Southampton at the London Stadium.
In-form Charlie Austin opened the scoring for his 5th in 4 games, before second half strikes from Dusan Tadic and James Ward-Prowse completed the rout and condemned Slaven Bilic and his side to yet further misery.
The Hammers have now lost five of their six Premier League games so far this season – a 1-0 win at Bournemouth in the second week of the season – and results in other competitions haven’t exactly gone to plan thus far either.
They were ejected from the Europa League at the qualifying stage by Romanian outfit Astra Giurgiu for the second consecutive season, and relied upon a trademark Dimitri Payet free-kick to scrape them through the EFL Cup third round against lowly Accrington Stanley.
Following the club’s second best ever Premier League finish last season, all signs point to Championship football once again after a beyond frustrating start to the season.
Our landlord thinks West Ham may already be doomed to relegation, and here are THREE reasons why……
History repeats itself
The last time West Ham finished 7th in the table back in 2001/02, you won’t guess what happened the next season.
Actually you probably will given the direction this article is going, but either way they were relegated as they slipped 11 places to 18th in the table.
The Hammers also finished 9th back in 2008/09, only slip to 17th and 20th placed finishes the following season, so you can see a pattern of relative success vs. eventual fall from grace emerging.
Summer business
What West Ham craved last season was an out-and-out scorer, alongside a solid right-back and centre-half – all with quality to match.
Instead, the Hammers signed a number of lack-lustre, unproven wingers including Gokhan Tore and Sofiane Feghouli; a nearing retirement full-back in Alvaro Arbeloa; and possibly the world’s-most over-rated striker/worst-penalty take Simeone Zaza who couldn’t finish his dinner let alone a goalscoring chance.
Money was invested in the wrong areas and the wrong people.
Poor defence
If the Premier League is telling us one thing so far, it is that teams are out to score goals.
While West Ham haven’t done too badly going forward there is room for improvement, however their real problem lies at the back.
With other teams seemingly scoring so freely a solid back-line is essential, however West Ham’s looks all at sea as they are without the injured Aaron Cresswell and the departed James Tomkins.
If they don’t improve they will continue to leak goals.
14 goals conceded in the last 4 league games is relegation form.
