According to a report from The Athletic, the entire West Ham squad will receive a 50% pay-cut if they are relegated to the Championship.

With relegation looking almost certain with us seven points behind Nottingham Forest, a lot of players will already have one eye on the exit because they won’t want to play in the Championship on half the money.

There are a good few players in the squad at the moment that will already be eyeing up an exit.

Obviously one being Paquetá who is pushing for a move back to Flamengo this month. I can’t see anyone else pushing to leave this month, but there are a good few that would want to leave as soon as the summer starts.

This is purely speculation, but I believe Jean-Clair Todibo, El-Hadji Malick Diouf, Mateus Fernandes, Edson Alvarez, Valentin Castellanos, and Aaron Wan-Bissaka would all force or want an exit from the club.

Jarrod Bowen is a difficult one, everyone thought he would see out his career at West Ham, we love him, he loves us, and he’s our captain. However, the relationship has strained slightly this season and he’s way too good to play in the Championship.

We’d all love for him to give us a year in the Championship to get us back up, but I don’t think there is any chance of that realistically, but who knows, he’s 29 now, there won’t be many clubs willing to spend big money on him. I’d actually lean towards predicting he would stay, which sounds crazy.

In terms of players that would stay, some reports are suggesting that Songoutou Magassa would stick around, which would maybe be a suprise to many.

I think Tomás Soucek would be 50/50, like Bowen he’s in love with the club and the fans, but no doubt David Moyes and Everton would love to take him off our hands, but I would hope he would stay, and he’d be immense in the Championship.

The same with Summerville, he’s been poor this season so I’m not sure how suitors he would have for a decent price. He has shown how great he can be in the Championship before and would be key to our title fight.

Alphonse Areola would probably also leave the club, however, that probably won’t be his choice, we would probably love to sell him and had Hermansen as our #1 in the second tier.

The players I think that would certainly stay are most of the youngsters; Freddie Potts, Ollie Scarles, Ezra Mayers, Mohamadou Kante, Callum Marshall and George Earthy of the ones that have featured for us this season.

Players like Caelan Casey, Preston Fearon, Airidas Golambeckis and Finlay Hedrick would also benefit from the Hammers’ relegation.

As for senior first team players, I think James Ward-Prowse would stay if Nuno is sacked, I can actually see Cornet giving it a go in the Championship for some reason.

I think Max Kilman would stay, as much as I’d like to sell them and bring in a younger and probably better defender. We can’t rebuild the whole squad and I can’t see him having many suitors, so he may have to stay.

I think new signing Pablo Felipe would like to stick around, I think we can see already he’s not quite at PL level yet, so a season in the Champ could benefit him. Kyle Walker-Peters would probably also remain at the club, like he did at Southampton when his stock was much higher than it is now.

Hypothetical West Ham Championship XI without signings:

Hermansen; Walker-Peters, Kilman, Mayers, Scarles; Magassa, Potts, Earthy; Summerville, Pablo, Bowen.