West Ham’s problems started in the January transfer window

In February it had looked like David Moyes had brought new spirit to a dejected West Ham team, but the last two weeks have been particularly unkind for the Hammers boss. We have endured consecutive 4-1 thumpings from Liverpool (expected but still disappointing) and Swansea City (no way should this ever happen).

The Liverpool defeat is still inexcusable but maybe could be blamed on low confidence and the Reds’ frightening attack. But losing to Swansea was beyond funny. How did that happen? It felt like the bad old days of Bilic and the upcoming fans protest is only going to make the atmosphere worse. West Ham once again look like a club in relegation jeopardy.

There’s no disguising how feeble we looked in the humiliating collapse at Liberty Stadium, only a win would have addressed this alarming slide towards the relegation zone. We were extremely poor, 2-0 down after 32 minutes, the game was over.

It is shocking to note that West Ham enjoyed a dominating 54% possession, but if you do nothing with the ball it’s pointless. The lone positive was seeing yet another strong performance from Declan Rice, who cleared the ball off the line to prevent further embarrassment.

Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images

Recent spanking were fuelled by one of the worst transfer windows in recent memory. We all knew Diafra Sakho needed to leave and amidst the uproar of the club potentially selling him to a relegation rival; we ended up doing the same thing with Ayew, who was having a far better season. To replace them with nobody serves to highlight how poor this transfer window was.

The lack of goal scorers is worryingly apparent with two of our goal-threats gone and Andy Carroll presumably out of the season. This could be damning.

The decision to sell Andre Ayew is highly questionable. I appreciate that he’s 28 and might have been taking up high wages, but selling our third-highest scorer to a relegation rival was extremely poor decision-making. It paid major dividends for Swansea as Ayew helped to rip the West Ham defence (defense) apart.

I had never heard of Jordan Hugill before West Ham were linked to sign him and it’s hard to form an opinion of someone who has spent of his Hammers career on the bench. The transfer felt desperate and in these troubling times, replacing Ayew with a no name from the Championship is not what we needed.

Photo by Steve Bardens/Getty Images

Signing a 25-year old forward who has only managed eight goals in 27 Championship games seems strange. Considering that Hugill has yet to push himself into the West Ham starting lineup it’s not a good start from the Preston and North End signing – we should have kept Ayew for this run of games.

April is looking like a difficult test, you would have hoped West Ham had created suitable distance from the relegation zone to handle a month where we face Manchester United [date still tbd], Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City. The Burnley and Southampton games have become must-win “Titanic do-or-die” struggles to save the season and avoid the dreaded relegation zone.

I am far less confident of our Premier League survival.