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Our view: Relegation the only answer for West Ham to flush out owners and start to flourish

Tags: west ham west
It sounds utterly ludicrous given the increasingly competitive nature of both the Premier League and the Championship, but is relegation the only answer for West Ham United to flourish in the long term?
I am conscious that by the mere suggestion I may have lost many of you already.
But bear with me because it really could be the only tangible and realistic hope West Ham have of any kind of progress on and off the field.
David Sullivan and David Gold have owned West Ham for 10 years next month.
West Ham finished ninth before they arrived. And the Hammers have only bettered that once since - with the emotion of the final season at Upton Park driving the team on to record their best points haul of the Premier League era.

Photo by BEN STANSALL AFP via Getty Images

Don't dream it's over

Since the unpopular duo took over their supposedly beloved West Ham, the club no longer owns its own ground.
West Ham have sacrificed 112 years of history and one of the most intimidating football grounds in the country, for an athletics bowl with temporary seating propped up by scaffolding and a claret carpet masking the great chasms between the stands and the pitch.
Recruitment has been woeful and scattergun throughout. The squad is desperately short in a host of key areas and West Ham only possess two or three saleable assets.
But with the Premier League money pouring in and Sullivan and Gold continually failing to live up to their promises of investing big money into the team following the move to Stratford, the duo are onto a good thing.
West Ham are officially the 17th richest club in WORLD football.
They have the second most season ticket holders - for four consecutive seasons - in the country behind only Manchester United.
And that is despite not having won a trophy for 40 years. The fans are holding their end of the bargain.

Photo by Arfa Griffiths West Ham United FC via Getty Images

Relegation the only way to oust unpopular owners

Let's face it, the owners are not going to be selling up any time soon. If anything they want - and intend - to leave the West Ham cash cow to their offspring.
So now let’s be honest with one another. Relegation - as painful an experience as it will undoubtedly prove - is the only opportunity West Ham have have to rid ourselves of Sullivan and Gold.
Over the last decade they have shown themselves to be entirely incapable of running a football club with any sort of long-term strategy or without unwelcome interference.
They have fundamentally destroyed the identity and fabric of a great English football club. They have sold and razed an atmospheric traditional ground and replaced it with a soulless modern stadium that is not fit for football.
They appointed a succession of poor or unsuitable managers, failed to support them financially and undermined them publicly when things inevitably go wrong.
They have failed to invest consistently in playing staff and training facilities at a time when comparable - and many deemed smaller - clubs have progressed significantly by having a plan and being prepared to spend money.

Photo by Catherine Ivill AMA Getty Images

The West Ham-ster wheel

And most damning of all, they have polarised and disaffected a fiercely passionate and loyal fanbase to the point where lifelong supporters no longer relate to the club and cannot be bothered to attend matches anymore - myself among them.
There was a huge opportunity at West Ham. But Sullivan, Gold and Karren Brady have ridden roughshod over everything that made West Ham special through their arrogance, belligerence, incompetence and ineptitude.
Yes David Moyes might keep West Ham up this season. But then what? What's the big plan? What's the philosophy, what's the end game?
There won't be one, because there never has been.
It's just back on the West Ham-ster wheel once again.
If West Ham was a soap opera it would be axed because the plot is too ridiculous to be believed.
Sullivan and Gold need to be forced out as soon as possible and before any more damage is done.
If relegation is the catalyst and expedites a root and branch rebuilding process then so be it.
I'm prepared for that scenario and it doesn't scare me because I know on the other side we might get our club back.
One thing is for certain the resentment from fans towards the owners which spilled onto the pitch in March 2018 never went away.
And now it is back with a vengeance.

The post Our view: Relegation the only answer for West Ham to flush out owners and start to flourish appeared first on Hammers News.



This post first appeared on Moore Than Just A Club, please read the originial post: here

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