Yes, they have invested, but the football is rotten and the fans are in revolt
WEST HAM’S ‘LEAP FORWARD’ WAS OVERSOLD
For more than a season now, a contingency plan has existed to evacuate the owners of West Ham from their stadium in case of emergency. Not fire or flood; protest.
Since the Burnley game in 2018, when there were pitch invasions and objects were thrown at the directors’ box at the London Stadium, police have insisted on a withdrawal procedure. They believe staying put that day did not help matters.
So, for obvious reasons, David Sullivan and David Gold are becoming super-sensitive to criticism, particularly to commentaries they believe will inflame the crowd. Many of their mistakes are hard to defend; some are not.
West Ham’s unprecedented legal action against the broadcasters that, more than any other, finance the Premier League gave the directors the straightforward win their team are currently unable to achieve. Nobody can argue West Ham’s season is the work of an efficient club — but it is most certainly the folly of an expensively financed one.
As was pointed out in a lengthy apology on Sky Sports’ Sunday
Supplement, West Ham’s net spend in the last four years is £240million. Has it been invested well? Not really. Has it resulted in a stronger squad? Hardly. Have better players been bought than sold? Certainly not, because West Ham’s present group includes no individual with the class and creativity of Dimitri Payet or Marko Arnautovic.
Yet the money has been spent. That is where Sullivan and Gold are on solid ground. They have lavished a fortune to make West Ham as bad as they are.
In the hopeful belief they would repair their relationship with the supporters, Sullivan and Gold employed a Premier League-winning manager, Manuel Pellegrini, and bought players they thought would deliver attractive football to lift the mood: Felipe Anderson, Sebastien Haller, Jack Wilshere, Andriy Yarmolenko.
It has backfired. The football is rotten, the manager gone, a fireman, David Moyes, in his place. And the fans are revolting. That is the mood, and the narrative, that was reflected by a panel of journalists last week. Seven days on and it was left to another fireman, Geoff Shreeves, to make the relationship between Sky and West Ham right.
A stand-in — new presenter Jacqui oatley had a prior broadcasting commitment — Shreeves was reading from an autocue, obviously. Pictures of club-record signing Haller (below) illustrated his words, although it seems strange the argument should have been won by citing an arrival whose ineffectuality is one of the reasons West Ham are facing relegation, and were being discussed in the first place.
West Ham, said Shreeves, spent over £ 1.5m on scouts in the last year. Again, do your own jokes, but make sure you’re lawyered up first. on it went, detailing investment, straying into gossip — ‘West Ham did not veto the appointment of Stuart Pearce as coach’ — before alighting at Birmingham City, noting ground improvements on Sullivan and Gold’s watch. So what provoked such a climbdown? It was a throwaway remark by one of the guests, saying the club had a ‘ hands in the till’ culture. This was intended as a comment about players and managers earning very good money for little return, but after so long discussing the stewardship of Sullivan and Gold it took on an unintended meaning. The directors may charge interest on their loans to the club, but that remains their prerogative. It cannot be described as ‘hands in the till’ — not least because it’s their till. one can argue that after more than a quarter of a century of inviting journalists to hold forth on football — before Sunday Supplement there was Hold The Back Page — it is a miracle this is the first legal action the programme has faced. The fear will be that West Ham have given other clubs ideas.
Yet this ignores the unique forces at work. West Ham promised their fans a great leap forward at their new stadium. They oversold it. Not because it could not happen — West Ham may one day reap the benefits of the move, just with smarter investment — but because it was so much harder than was made out, to muscle in front of an established elite, plus clubs such as Leicester, and reach the Champions League.
The reality was more mundane. Arsenal have a 60,000 capacity stadium, Tottenham have a 60,000 capacity stadium, Chelsea will too, one day. West Ham had to move just to stay still, just to remain the fourth-biggest club in London. Had they remained at
Upton Park, they would have receded in importance, challenged by Crystal Palace. Last week, West Ham beat Palace to the signature of Jarrod Bowen from Hull. Simply, they paid better personal terms. Would they have been able to do that at Upton Park, without these new revenue streams? Possibly not.
Yet fans don’t want to hear that. They look at the league table, see their team in the bottom three, look around the London Stadium, see none of the warmth they felt for Upton Park, and look to the directors’ box and see those they hold responsible.
The Sunday Supplement panel waded straight into this conflict. It could be argued West Ham’s directors should have more important matters on their minds. They would argue nothing is more important than ensuring that evacuation procedure never requires activation; for, if it is ever needed, it almost certainly means their club is going down.