After everything that’s gone wrong, West Ham suddenly find themselves on course for an end to the season that even the most cynical fans never saw coming.
It’s difficult for West Ham fans to know how to feel about this season.
The Hammers have been the biggest underachievers in any of Europe’s top leagues by some distance after spending £155m on a team which already contained the likes of Jarrod Bowen, Mohammed Kudus and Lucas Paqueta.
Sat languishing in 17th place after regressing to the brink of the relegation zone is West Ham’s new reality.
Fighting to avoid being the worst team in the Premier League outside the hopeless bottom three.
Anger has turned to apathy among fans in a season which has lacked any jeopardy whatsoever since West Ham were knocked out of the FA Cup at the first hurdle in January, 48 hours after Graham Potter’s arrival.
Now there is jeopardy to West Ham’s season – for the fans at least – and they’re powerless to do anything about it.
Painful new twist on the cards for West Ham
In many respects supporters can feel grateful for the fact Ipswich, Leicester and their next opponents Southampton have been so dismally dreadful.
Because it has undoubtedly ensured West Ham remain a Premier League team next season.
The truth is the Hammers should be nowhere near a relegation battle after their investment in recent seasons.
And they would have been were it not for the ever increasing gap between the Premier League and promoted clubs – who have all gone back down in each of the last two seasons.
Results have not improved under Potter, they’ve got worse.
There has been no new manager bounce with the Englishman leading the Irons to just three wins in his 13 games so far after ending a 20-month hiatus from football.
Mathematically West Ham still aren’t officially safe from relegation even if in all reality they are.
That says a lot about a miserable campaign that has seen just nine Premier League wins between the hapless Julen Lopetegui and Potter to add to the four in the second half of David Moyes’ final campaign.
It means that, in the last season-and-a-half, the Hammers have recorded just 13 league wins in 51 games.
With a record like that the club really do have to be grateful they’re not staring the Championship in the face.
How did it come to this less than two years after the club won its first major trophy of the last 45 years?
Somehow, though, in the wonderful world that is West Ham, things could be about to get a whole lot worse.
West Ham on course for unimaginable end to nightmare season
Because West Ham are now on course for an utterly unimaginable end to a nightmare season.
And there is nothing they can do to stop it, only watch on in pitiful hope.
Three of the club’s biggest rivals besides Millwall are on course to do the unthinkable.
Bitter rivals Spurs made the Europa League semi-finals by succeeding where West Ham failed in the same competition three years ago and beating Eintracht Frankfurt over two legs.
The prospect of Tottenham ending their long trophy drought while simultaneously qualifying for the Champions League will just rub salt in West Ham wounds this season.
To make matters worse, Spurs looked on course to face a difficult opponent in West Ham’s Italian cousins Lazio.
The Serie A side scored in the last minute of the game to make it 2-2 on aggregate and force extra time against FK Bodø/Glimt after losing the first leg 2-0 away.
Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea on course for European clean sweep
Lazio then took a 3-2 lead in the tie but conceded a goal and lost on penalties to hand Spurs what many feel will be a clear path to the final in Bilbao.
Tottenham could rescue their own dismal campaign by eclipsing West Ham’s recent European trophy win and only Man United or Atletico Bilbao stand in their way.
While that is happening, former West Ham skipper Declan Rice has literally led Arsenal to the Champions League semi-finals by dominating in their 5-1 win over Real Madrid.
It raises the prospect of watching Rice win one of the trophies he left West Ham in pursuit of.
And worse still the now very real prospect of a north London European double.
Would West Ham fans even have any ammunition left against two of their big London rivals if that happened?
Another bitter blow looms for the Hammers too.
Even Millwall have a chance for success
Chelsea, historically West Ham’s biggest rivals after Millwall and Tottenham, are on course to put their name on the Hammers’ Europa Conference League trophy.
And they are set to do so with their reserve team no less.
West Ham managed that achievement unbeaten – something Chelsea won’t after losing again in the competition, this time at home to Legia Warsaw, as they made the semi-finals.
But like Spurs, Chelsea look a shoo-in to make the final as they face Djurgården next.
And in the final itself they will come up against either Manuel Pellegrini’s Real Betis or – you guessed it – Fiorentina – the team the Hammers vanquished on that famous night in Prague.
There is a genuine danger West Ham’s three big London rivals complete a European clean sweep to really mark this down as one of the bleakest seasons in Hammers history.
Even Millwall are in with a chance of success. They are three points off a play-off spot in the Championship as they push for a Premier League return.
Roll on next season.
Champions of Europe, we used to sing that.
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