When the Covid-19 pandemic broke out at the end of 2019, West Ham were a side only capable of fantasising about a place in the top six of the Premier League. Almost two years later, however, and the Hammers are very much slamming down the nail into the coffin of what we perceive to be the traditional top table in English football.
David Moyes’ West Ham Side Are No Flash in the Pan, They Are Here to Stay
Moyes Proves Class
When David Moyes returned to West Ham in December of 2019, many believed that was their fate sealed; that Moyes could not and would never steady the ship at the London club. Football is a strange game, though; a game where a silence-creating pandemic can in fact guide clubs into dreamland. In a nightmarish scenario full of so many changes in the outside world and that of football, West Ham used the silence, and the critique-less stadia to reinvent themselves.
Last season was simply a taster of things to come when many believed that it was flash in the pan; a team led by a loanee hero who has since abandoned them. We are just past our first landmark of the Premier League season, however, and West Ham are the second-highest placed London club, sitting fourth – above Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur. If some still dared to believe that this was a flash in the pan before the season began, now watching the flash turn into lively flames, the doubters will be in disbelief.
So comfortable every game seems that you can’t help but think of the Hammes as a top club right now. They have all of the hallmarks of a top six side. They have a serial goalscorer in Michail Antonio; a magician and entertainer in Saïd Benrahma; defenders as imperious as those sitting right in front of them with the likes of Kurt Zouma and Declan Rice. Most importantly, they are beginning to look inevitable. That, even far from their best, a goal will come; the three points will arrive.
Only Just Getting Started
When teams such as West Ham suddenly take a seat at the Premier League’s best version of the Round Table, a timer is instantly started for two seasons. The general expectancy is that the underdogs will fall, and what goes up, must come down. But that’s where West Ham feel different. When taking a more microscopic look at their squad, it is built for both the present and the future.
Rice is still just 22, for example. That’s one of the best midfielders in the world with 10+ years left of his career at what many hope will be West Ham. And then there’s Benrahma, 26, Pablo Fornals, 25, Tomáš Souček, 26, Zouma, 27. Not to mention Jarrod Bowen, 24, and Ben Johnson, 21. The fact is, the top core of those at the London Stadium still have countless years ahead of them at the top, with some yet to even reach their prime.
Only just getting started, West Ham aren’t just waiting in line for a seat at the top, they’ve taken their place and started to feel comfortable. And rightly so.
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