Is relegation really a possibility for West Ham United in the 2025/26 season?

Many of the West Ham fanbase have shared real concern over the chances of them facing the drop in the coming season, and for good reason. With the way they played last season, it’s a miracle that the Hammers finished outside of the bottom 3, let alone 14th.

On paper, they had an incredible squad, but it’s one that massively underperformed, but the total rebuild that we had hoped for looks unlikely to happen.

For me, relegation is very much on the cards next season for a few reasons.

Firstly, recruitment is going to be an issue for us. David Sullivan has already shown the sort of Summer we’re in for by putting a man who’s never once dealt with transfer negotiations in charge of talking to clubs and agents. This, alongside the limited budget the board have given the recruitment team, gives little faith that we’re going to be pulling off the top quality signings we need.

Secondly, there’s Graham Potter himself. His opening months as manager have been abysmal. Where other gaffers have joined clubs and hit the ground running, look at Wolves’ upturn in form, we have to wait for him to get his players in. The way things are going, he won’t be getting much of an opportunity to do so anyway. Hopefully he can prove me wrong, but there’s little sign so far that he is the right man for the job.

Finally, the atmosphere around the club is just not one that’s going to push us on to better places. Simply put, a lot of the players couldn’t care less about the club and are ready to jump ship. Although a strong window could change this, it’s a big issue to try and weed out. On top of this, us fans are just drained. Watching West Ham has felt like a chore for some time now, and there’s been so little to get excited over. Without the fans behind them it could be a very long season for the players.

Although, we can’t fully judge until the window is over, if I was to say right now either way I’d put money on our Irons being in a relegation scrap once again. Unless something miraculous happens, I can’t see us pushing for the top half and, with Leeds in particular looking like they’re going to give it a good go, there’s a space opening up for one of the established sides to drop down to the second tier.