West Ham’s embarrassing performance results in Liverpool thumping.

That result has been coming for some time. Although the Hammers were unbeaten in 4 games, they hadn’t particularly looked deserving of any of the points they picked up, including wins over Wolves and Southampton.

While the first 20 minutes wasn’t awful, Liverpool started the game stronger and had a couple of chances to take the lead. In the 30th minute they took advantage of their growing dominance in the match, with some poor defending from Coufal and Mavropanos allowing Diaz to score the opener.

Kudus came close to finding an equaliser, with his low driven shot beating Alisson but coming out off the inside of the post. Instead, it was the Reds who found the second goal of the game. They were allowed way too much space on the right wing, which gave Salah the opportunity to show off his brilliant dribbling, helped by some more questionable defending by Mavropanos, before laying it off to Gakpo.

Shortly before half-time, Salah scored thanks to being awarded far too much space on the right hand side of the box, but Areola really should have stopped it.

In the 54th minute Trent Alexander-Arnold’s long range effort was flicked off the head of Kilman and into the back of the net.

Salah once again broke Dinos’ ankles in the 84th minute to set up Jota for their fifth and final goal of the evening.

Once again it was a dismal display from our Irons. Granted we played the best team in the country at the moment, but the performances have been consistently poor. If they had someone to take their chances, Southampton could have easily have put the same amount into the back of the net on Boxing Day.

Throughout the season there’s been nothing to suggest that Lopetegui can turn things around. If there was any sort of identity being shown then you’d be able to argue that he should be given the season, but why give a manager who doesn’t seem to have a plan more time? He should have been sacked weeks ago, but by keeping him we are wasting the season away. The board had the chance to be proactive but they blew that, they must now be reactive and see that these performances are not acceptable – it’s time for change.