The relegated West Ham team of 2002/03 was labelled ‘too good to go down’. No one is saying that about this group.

A seven-point gap to safety has yawned open at the bottom end of the Premier League and the threat of dropping back into the Championship after 14 years is suddenly very real.

For a team which hasn’t won in 10 Premier League games and taken three points on just three occasions this season, it is an alarming difference to make up.

Away from the league, West Ham’s progress through to the FA Cup fourth round with a 2-1 win over QPR last weekend provided some welcome respite.

With confidence on the floor, a fanbase ready to revolt and fears of relegation fewer than three years on from a European trophy success escalating, some may wonder, how did it come to this?

But West Ham’s decline should come as no surprise.

There is a phrase in football: sleepwalking towards relegation. Yet, West Ham fans have been shouting and screaming for years in a bid to jolt the club they love out of its dangerous drift.

“It is in serious decline and dying a slow death,” read a line in a statement from fan group Hammers United in September.

West Ham’s fan advisory board, representing 25,000 supporters, issued a vote of no confidence in the board earlier this season, with chairman David Sullivan and vice-chair Karren Brady the target of much of their ire.

There have been boycotts at some games and loud protests before others. But the only change coming appears to be West Ham’s league status.

For many fans, the underlying disgruntlement stretches back to 2016, when the club left Upton Park for the London Stadium. It’s seen by some supporters as a core error of the owners, trading the history and soul of the club’s iconic home ground for a financial fix unsuitable for the football experience.

But the former Olympic Stadium is just part of the problem. Yes, it has its drawbacks but there were special nights there on that run to Conference League success in 2023.

It has since played host to many shortcomings.

On top of their matchday experience issues, supporters’ groups have highlighted a failure to build on David Moyes’ triumph and expensive mis-steps in the transfer market.

In defence, the club can point to substantial spending on new players. It is worth noting that since the summer of that 2016 switch to the London Stadium, West Ham have forked out £1bn on signings.

Only the so-called Big Six have spent more.

Twelve signings in that time cost over £30m each – but perhaps only Lucas Paqueta and Mohammed Kudus can be labelled as successes from that expensively-acquired pool.

Kudus – sold at around a £17m profit to Spurs last summer – was one of five first-team recruits bought in the window of Declan Rice’s £105m move to Arsenal. But it was the splurge 12 months on which often comes into focus during discussions with supporters.

Technical director Tim Steidten was brought in to manage West Ham’s dealings from the summer of 2023. The following year, Max Kilman (£40m), Jean-Clair Todibo (on loan and then £35m), Niclas Fullkrug (£27.5m), Luis Guilherme (£25m) and Crysencio Summerville (£25m) were among those to arrive with positive reviews.

The suggestion West Ham ‘won’ that window has now been revised.

As for Steidten, Moyes ended up asking him to stay away from the training ground, while, following the Scot’s exit, his success at revolutionising West Ham’s playing style and approach in a post-Moyes era was summed up by Julen Lopetegui similarly falling out with the German.

In January 2025, Graham Potter opted to bring in his own head of recruitment, Kyle Macaulay. Steidten left in February 2025. Macaulay left in October, soon after Potter.

It’s easy to see how the club’s recruitment processes haven’t worked out as they’d have hoped.

Survival hopes are now being put in the hands of Pablo and Taty Castellanos, two forwards untested in the Premier League but whose arrivals have led to the experienced Callum Wilson looking to cut short the contract he signed in June.

Despite all of that chopping and changing, the club can reasonably argue they signed players wanted by others and with encouraging reputations.

So, in a similar way to another club with a United suffix in the Premier League, is it the quality of the players or just the environment they are playing in which is the problem?

Should Lopetegui, Potter and now Nuno Espirito Santo have expected better performances from the players they put out on the pitch?

Some comments from Tomas Soucek, undeniably a leader at West Ham, jumped out in December when he was a guest on the club’s official podcast. “We have to… do it maximum everywhere, even like the [training] sessions.

“Sometimes it is really great, but sometimes it’s not so perfect. But we have to keep consistent and on a high level and then you will perform. I don’t like if some players don’t train hard, and you have to tell them.”

The image of players not giving 100 per cent in every training session with the club’s Premier League status in the balance will not be a welcome one for supporters but perhaps links up with the performances on matchday.

Similarly, after captain Jarrod Bowen applauded his team for showing some fight in the recent draw with Brighton, having revealed there was a players-only inquest after the previous humbling at home to Fulham, supporters may ask why it took until December 30 to see that desire.

Lucas Paqueta’s unseemly – and unrelenting – tirade which led to his red card against Liverpool was the wrong kind of fire. Yet, where were the team-mates pulling him away from an onslaught against the referee which was only heading one way: a sending off which would rob the team of any prospect of grabbing a late goal and result against their then-troubled visitors, and a suspension for their playmaker?

Finally, how much has the turnover of head coaches – or indeed their suitability to the West Ham remit – been a key factor?

Lopetegui, Potter and Nuno – like many of their signings – came to east London with notable CVs but reputations which have taken a hit since.

They have overseen performances from West Ham sides wide-open and error-prone at the back, vulnerable from set-pieces, unable to build through the lines and then lacking the legs to win the ball back, and, in attack, almost entirely dependent on Bowen, who could go to the World Cup with England this summer then find himself preparing for a season in the Championship.

He wouldn’t be the first West Ham England international to face relegation. David James, Michael Carrick, Trevor Sinclair, Jermain Defoe and Joe Cole know all about that.

It will now take a tremendous turnaround for West Ham to arrest the slide and avoid another drop from the top.