West Ham Banter

09 Jan 2026 07:39:10
{Ed's Note - Ed001 has posted a new article entitled, Matchday 20 - Quick Round Up

08 Jan 2026 18:41:42
{Ed's Note - Ed001 has posted a new article entitled, Matchday 20 - Quick Round Up

08 Jan 2026 16:00:14
DEAR ALL, on here, I would like you all to cast your minds back to last season, when frankly we were not much better than we are now

Normally I sit about 12Yards from Sullivans perch, I mention this only that we must have been watching the same games

Mentioning 3 games at home, Man Untd, Fulham and Wolves

Game against Man U was totally one sided, first half, they hit the post twice and the bar from close range, this was followed by them missing 4 easy chance, that my wife would have scored, HT I could not believe it was 0-0
We then scored a fortuitous goal, followed by a penalty that never was and won 2-1

V Fulham, the cottagers were far superior and gifted us three ridiculous goals, nothing was deserved we won 3-2

V Wolves, who again were the better side by a street, they missed several easy chances, we had 5 attempts, and won 3-0

In those games Lady Luck was not on our shoulders, she was playing for us!

Those 9 points, along with a couple of lucky away games, saved us, this accompanied by 3 terrible promoted teams sealed the deal

Sullivan, saw what a crappy outfit we really where, and did nothing, that type of luck was never going to happen again
And it hasn't
No one deserves relegation more than Sullivan

08 Jan 2026 17:58:57
Sullivan just looked at the results and not the performances which last season was good enough to stay up, but this season we’re getting neither, and it’s all down to him.

08 Jan 2026 08:50:56
Does anyone know if any of our new signings have relegation clauses in their contracts or are they tied to us when we go down.

08 Jan 2026 09:27:19
Mac these. Days it’s unlikely, that any of the players bought in, won’t have a relegation clause in their contracts
It would be remiss of their respective agents, not to include That factor in a contract
Homegrown players like Potts however may not have that clause in their contracts

08 Jan 2026 07:39:05
{Ed's Note - Joyfull has posted a new article entitled, The Championship Drop and What It Means for West Ham United

08 Jan 2026 09:06:00
Well written Joyful, must have taken hours to put all that together, excellent Journalism👍⚒⚒⚒

07 Jan 2026 21:43:32


Joyfull has written an article entitled, The Championship Drop and What It Means for West Ham United

07 Jan 2026 22:36:30
Good article Joyfull and thank you for taking the time to do it.

As a discussion point, you list the players to be sold in a fire sale but realistically would they all need to be sold? Bowen will want to play in the PL as will Paqueta and possibly Todibo and AWB but isn’t it likely that Fernandes, Mougassa and Diop could be retained giving us a better chance of 1st time return?

08 Jan 2026 06:41:16
I second that. I do feel the current ownership is now aggravating the fan base so much that even the more loyal fans will give the club a miss until they go. I believe many already have. I don’t put myself in the more diehard group but I won’t be struggling to go every other game until they are gone. Crowds are going to plummet.
I think you are probably right regarding the players that will go. I’d like to see Magassa and Fernandez stay but Fernandez left Southampton when they dropped but maybe he would consider staying.

I would make Potts the new captain or maybe Fernandez if he stayed. But one thing where we are in a decent position is that our youth side is very handy and many have already shown their ability by being loaned. I would love to see them make the backbone of our side. I do feel we need another more progressive and enthusiastic manager but all depends on if Sullivan either goes or gives the power over to professionals (highly unlikely) . While Brady and him remain in place our demise will continue.

08 Jan 2026 08:14:20
We have a dressing room that's got, or has had, too many bad apples which need to be gotten rid of. That was the first thing arteta did at arsenal getting rid of abameyang and Co.

3 managers this year and each of them has had issues with the players. Lop got punched, Potter had a raging argument and now seemingly Nuno has lost the dressing room.

Too many bad players with huge egos that should have never been bought. Weve had 3 decent managers this season and each one has had problems with this group of players. Little wonder we can't win a game of football as a team because they are not a team.

Suffice to say, no matter who the manager is, things will not change until the poison is gone

08 Jan 2026 08:20:44
I think the likelihood on any good player staying, is tiny, the loyalty factor these days, hardly exists, WH cannot pay premier wages in the championship

There are others I’ve not even mentioned, like Soucek, captain of Czech, never going to stay, so the exodus will be closer to a dozen

In a situation like this, All the WH players will have some kind of relegation. Clause in their contract, forcing the club to part with them

That means taking less money in a forced sale, rather than getting true market value

If you like it’s a sickening rerun of 2003, when good players, were sold for nothing

Unfortunately there’s nothing you can do about it, that’s football, you can blame Nuno, Potter Loppy, Moyes. Bilic, whomever you want

They are all just passing through, the demise of WH is down to one man only Sullivan, Mrs Brady is just a handsomely paid mouthpiece

The only question to answer, will be, Will Sullivan go all out trying to return WH to the premier, or will he try to sell up?

08 Jan 2026 10:30:26
Even if we came back up, i doubt we would stay up not under Sullivan he's clueless.

Joyful you mentioned our Waterloo moment under him was when we were in top 4 and Moyes wasnt backed in January, then the season after when we were going strong in europa league and again not backed in January, you can go back to the last season at Upton park, we had Lanzini, Payet, and i'm sure we were top 4 at the half way point and sullivan again didn't spend. Waited until the summer and diluted the squad with rubbish, cheap deals and free agents, Nordviet, Feghouli, Calleri, Ajeti.

Point is its never been 1 moment, he's had numerous moments to kick on, show some ambition, stabalise the club, but every time he gets it wrong, the amount of clubs that have taken over us in a short space of time is crazy, whether due to competence, ambition or both, they capitalize we dont.

The stadium move wasnt about ambition and challenging it was about increasing revenues so Sullivan didn't have to put his own money in when he couldn't charge the club huge interest anymore. Just keep us in league and hope someone matches his ridiculous asking price for the club.

We need new owners and a purpose build stadium or we are done.

08 Jan 2026 14:05:50
It almost feels like we need to be relegated in order to instigate ownership change and beyond. Staying up will just ensure that these incompetent and greedy owners stay in situ. I never want us to lose however the thought of relegation potentially speeding up Sullivans demise does make it an easier pill to swallow.

We just have to be prepared for things potentially getting a lot worse, like Sunderland endured, before they get better

08 Jan 2026 14:09:37
I think its known universally how the West Ham owners are disliked (trying to be diplomatic) .

Read a great article today about how relegation wouldn't be so bad after all, if only to get rid of Sullivan and Co and start again

Yeah it would hurt for a while, but I tell you that they sell up, it will be more than worth it

08 Jan 2026 14:13:27
AI, that is a post with which I wholeheartedly agree. Well said.

08 Jan 2026 15:26:08
It is possible as Dabber says that things may get worse before they get better. Because we must owe a lot on players bought the last couple years. Then we have the likes of cornet and JWP on long expensive contracts.
Everyone can see how many empty seats there were there the other night that is only going to get worse.
I think the thing that has always held us up is the price that Sullivan wants to sell up for with his greed, and the reality of the actual market price what the club is really worth.

Even selling at a lower price he must have still made a fair profit on his investment?
We could end up like Queens Park in Scotland who play their home games at Hampden in front of of a few hundred fans in our case a few thousand.

08 Jan 2026 15:45:31
Mac, I understand what you are saying, and I agree with the gist, but………,
The Championship is not as easy to get out of nowadays. We might struggle. This time we don’t have our own stadium and the club is heavily in debt thanks to that worm Sullivan and his cohorts. We need to fight to stay in the Premiership, and to that end, even though things are looking grim, we should buck up and fight.

We are going to beat QPR and go on a cup run. That will give us impetus to beat Spurs, and then the gap looks brighter. Forest are catchable because they are crap with a crap manager, and even though we’ve got our own crap manager, we are West Ham and we’ve got some bloody good players. So come on you Irons!

09 Jan 2026 07:07:55
Regarding the captains armband it should be Soucek. He is captain of his nation, gives us 100% and appears to genuinely care.

07 Jan 2026 13:59:17
Nuno has a worse record than Potter and most fans if not all fans wanted Potter gone, what's your thoughts on Nuno, do we keep him for the championship or do we get a championship experienced manager, do we try for Carrick or Russell Martin who got Southampton promoted, give us your thoughts and throw some names out there.

07 Jan 2026 14:34:32
Nuno managed Wolves in the Championship and finished the season on 99 points if I remember correctly.

Personally, we need a period of stability and if we are relegated, which looks more and more likely with every game we play, I think we should stick with him rather than pay him off and then let lead us in to next season.

Get rid of the players not fit for purpose, and build a team around the young players we have around the starting line up already. Players like Diouf, Scarles, Potts, Magassa, Kante, Orford, Fernandes (if we can keep him), Summerville (if we can keep him) and Pablo.

Allow him to rebuild like he did with Wolves in the Championship and go from there.

If the season starts off badly next season, send him packing and give the job to someone like Carrick then.

07 Jan 2026 15:05:42
Well I don’t think we can argue he has been a failure. That doesn’t make me feel any better about Potter or Loppy or Moyes for that matter. I did think Nuno could keep us up but also didn’t see him as a long term manager as his tactics are far too conservative for my liking. So he has to go weather that be now or at the end of season doesn’t matter.

Russell Martin, NO Carrick NO for me.
I would go for McKenna if Ipswich fail to get promoted. If they get promoted we can forget that.
This is all immaterial though until Sullivan and Brady go we are never going to get anywhere. Because they are the primary reason for our demise over the last 10 years

07 Jan 2026 15:13:23
Totally agree with Die. We can't keep blaming the manager. Although his record woth us isn't great.

Give him till Christmas see how it goes

Im more interested to see if we can hang on to Pablo, Taty and the younger players. Keepers need to be changed aswell, but, allow him to rebuild and see what happens

07 Jan 2026 15:27:03
Apparently Nuno fell out with his team, so we aren't getting the same Nuno, also Mendes had shares in Wolves so we aren't getting the same Mendes.

Get Carrick or Parker in now there is a long way to go, who knows what could happen.

07 Jan 2026 17:10:58
I cannot believe people want to give Nuno more time! What for? It was obvious before he came that he was the wrong man for WHU and his record since then has confirmed this. Get rid now. I think we are down, so any attack minded coach will do if we are looking for a miracle.

07 Jan 2026 17:32:53
Tin I don't think he deserves more time, i just don't see the point in changing him mow just to change again in June, all along I've said he wasn't right and so it has played out, I would just forget this season and plan for next year and stop stickng elastoplasts over something so broken, the board are overall to blame but Nunos terrible tactics and bizarre team selections are not blame free

07 Jan 2026 22:05:59
I’d like Parker or Silva as manager, but we can’t keep sacking managers.
We used to be the club that offered security. Now we are at the other end of the spectrum. Gone are the days of great managers and coaches learning at West Ham like Greenwood and Lyell.


If you trace it back our problems started when Lyall was sacked and then heightened further years later when the Swedish bank brought us and then nearly went under. Since then we have been disabled.
Our only success since Lyall was with Moyse.
Every other manager has failed.

08 Jan 2026 06:48:30
The Icelandic venture went pairshaped because of the banking crisis. That is when the porn barons took over. I believe We have had more managers in that period than in the entirety of our total existence. So it is these idiots continually employing inappropriate managers until they go this will continue. Moyes should have left on a high when he won in Europe

07 Jan 2026 07:54:38
No point in sacking Nuno now. Let him try and build some pride back into the team and if we do go down, build a squad of hungry young players that can get us straight back up and start challenging for European places again just like Villa have

07 Jan 2026 09:21:15
The idea of course is good

However Nuno is not Emery, Villa have wealthy owners who stump up within reason on a regular basis, to keep the status quo going

A while back. You may remember, WH were in an excellent January position under Moyes, when the addition of 2/3 players, could have propelled us into the top four

THAT was WH, s Waterloo moment, four weeks that could have made WH a champion league side

Sullivan refused all Moyes requests, to get players in, and refused to spend a penny

Sullivan has brought about the demise of WH

WH WILL NEVER ACHIEVE ANYTHING WHILST HE REMAINS THE CHIEF SHAREHOLDER END OF STORY

Sorry Mac I will always love WH, but Sullivan has destroyed the club
Until we get new owners, nothing will ever change

07 Jan 2026 10:23:57
Oh I totally agree Joyful. Its the owners have us in this position but we can't keep changing the manager thinking things will change, when the damage is already done

07 Jan 2026 10:24:44
I sort of agree with you Jofull. Ironically, one of the players Moyse really wanted was Mikenkovic. He was only £15m. He’s now one of Forest’s outstanding players.

07 Jan 2026 11:04:50
I wouldn't sack him until the summer, have a replacement lined up.for then he isn't capable of building any pride he has had half a season and we are still terrible, no leadership, no direction, no long term plan, terrible tactics and team selections, awful defence, no creativity in midfield and can't attack he has changed nothing

As joyful says though nothing will change until the owners are gone anyway as they make football decisions without having football brains everything is firefighting all the time short term solutions, we need someone at the top with a long term vision, relegation is inevitable now I for one will not pay to go in that stadium whilst these owners are in place

07 Jan 2026 13:46:19
I definitely wouldn’t keep Nuno for next season if he even wanted to stay. I do have some sympathy for him as he inherited a far worse situation the the previous managers. Virtually all of the players we have were bought by our useless major shareholder and his sidekick and the previous 3 managers. He was responsible for a number of poor results which has come back to haunt him. His tactics are very Moyes-like and too cautious in his early days I and many others did see an improvement and thought we would be okay but that has obviously proved to be wrong since the Liverpool game that improvement has disintegrated and losing game after game becomes like a form of muscle memory and your confidence goes and it all becomes a habit.


If he goes now or at the end of the season it doesn’t really matter as others have said we need to get a young progressive manager or set up with a long term plan. But that won’t happen while’s these idiots are running the club so I can foresee some sort of Steve cooper appointment who could potentially take us down to the 1st division. I will be giving up my season ticket or as Robbo says won’t go back until Sullivan and Brady and kretinski are gone. I don’t know what the financial implications are of us getting relegated maybe Joyful can shed some light on that

07 Jan 2026 14:27:40
There were games under Nuno where we should have won, but ended losing or drawing, due to either poor officiating, individual mistakes or his subs/tactics. Things might have been very different a win early on it that run would have given the confidence a massive lift, say brighton, Mavro kicked in the head then the striker controls the ball with his hand. We should have won that 2-1

Then yesterday was one of the most inconsistent refereering displays I've seen slightest touch on their player wins a free kick, few times ours was clattered and nothing. The offside summerville did not intentionally play the ball he was shoved multiple times running full speed before milenkovic touches the ball into the bath of taty.

Disallowed. Then youve summerville running full speed about to go into the box and he's shoved in the back, no foul. They immediately go up the pitch get a soft free kick that is cleared by soucek. And unfortuantely they get a pen because 2 players off the ball collided 50 50 nothing in it.

stuff like this that has been going against a lot.

Now i'm sure Sullivan is looking at Nuno and thinking about what he done at Wolves in the championship with the help of Mendes signings.

But that Nuno had his team who he's always worked with and apprently has fell out with, now you could back him get a few more signings probably via mendes and hope it goes well, but if it doesn't where stuck with a dud Nuno and a load of mendes signings he will probably be happy to sell on in the summer when we are relgated, do either of these care?

Alternitively you go get a, Carrick, Bilic or even a Redknapp. Sign them a few players they want and try put a run of games together to stay up, our confidence is so low if one these brings it back get a win or 2 we could go on a run, long way to go a lot of points to play for. For me sticking with Nuno is defeatist and kicking the can down the road for when invetibly he falls out with Sullivan. Cut our losses now before half our squad is made up of Mendes clients.

Carrick took boro from relegation zone to play of places, playing attacking exciting football, some of these players have had boring defensive football under Moyes, Lopetugui, Potter and now Nuno. Give them something different let them off the leash and go after games. i'd rather our defenders make mistakes high up the pitch than in our own box.

07 Jan 2026 15:15:21
Really good post that Iron Al, couldn’t agree more with it

08 Jan 2026 06:26:07
I second that.

07 Jan 2026 07:39:05
{Ed's Note - Ed001 has posted a new article entitled, Fulham v Liverpool - A Quick Liverpool Perspective

07 Jan 2026 06:40:26
Morning all, Just seen ex referee Keith Hackett say our second goal should've stood as the Forest player cleared the ball which eventually went to a West Ham player, and that incident wasn't looked at the only thing that was looked at was to see if he was offside and not who played the ball

07 Jan 2026 10:05:46
Hackett is correct, goal should have stood, that could have changed the game

The ball was already past Gibbs White, who would not have made a chance on goal, but Areola did slap his face, so correct decision

BUT, WH are a poor side, gradually, disintegrated over the years, by terrible management, ….last season, as you know we were incredibly lucky, never going to happen again

All the signs were there, One man only is to blame, over the years and it’s not Nuno

07 Jan 2026 13:52:21
I did feel anything that could go against us yesterday did. I still thought we were poor and don’t think Forest are any good. But this season has exactly the same feel as the Grant, and Roeder seasons, so it’s all inevitable now.

Much as we deserved a bit more than what we got overall we have got what we deserved largely due to Sullivan and Brady