The future of manager Julen Lopetegui and technical director Tim Steidten has been plunged into fresh doubt heading into the new year.
West Ham brought the curtain down on a dismal 2024 with that 5-0 home hammering to Liverpool.
The defeat was a rather apt end to a calendar year which has seen more embarrassing drubbings than wins.
West Ham won just 11 league games across 2024.
The downturn started under David Moyes and has continued under Julen Lopetegui despite the club spending £155m on nine new signings.
The man heading up that recruitment was Tim Steidten.
As a new year begins, there are more than murmurings that all is not well behind the scenes at West Ham.
A journalist source revealed West Ham are far from happy with Steidten at the weekend.
It has since emerged Lopetegui has had direct talks with majority owner David Sullivan about transfers.
That already cast doubt over Steidten’s future given he is supposed to be in charge of the entire football operation and recruitment.
Then yesterday a bombshell was dropped that Sullivan has now taken back control of West Ham’s transfers.
Sullivan will allow input from Steidten and whoever is manager but wants to ‘be smarter and explore better deals’.
Lopetegui and Steidten on the brink at West Ham
Steidten had described his ‘euphoria’ assuming full control at West Ham after the departure of Moyes.
So this is a seismic change.
As a result it is surely only a matter of time before he departs the club.
With Lopetegui also said to be on the brink given results away at Man City and Villa are key to his future, it could be all change at West Ham in the new year.
Something certainly needs to change.
A table of all 90 teams in the English league pyramid showed West Ham ended the calendar year in 76th place.
After spending over a quarter of a billion pounds on signings in the last two summer windows, that is nowhere near good enough.
It has again been claimed that out of work Graham Potter remains on standby to take over at West Ham.
The former Brighton manager agreed to become Hammers boss on a six-month contract before the must-win match against Wolves.
Now West Ham can reunite Potter and an elite director of football with Lopetegui and Steidten on the brink.
Steidten has come in for criticism over his transfer dealings given West Ham’s shortcomings.
West Ham can reunite Potter and elite DoF Ashworth
The German was hailed a hero by many in the summer.
But underwhelming performances and results have seen the spotlight cast on that recruitment.
Especially as West Ham have gone from having the second oldest squad in the Premier League to THE oldest.
Given Steidten and Lopetegui pledged to rebuild West Ham around young, versatile, exciting players that has not gone down well at all.
Especially as it is showing on the pitch with the Hammers looking aged, immobile and lacking in pace and dynamism.
If change is on the horizon at West Ham and Potter has indeed agreed to become the new manager then the club need to reunite him with Dan Ashworth in east London.
Potter and Ashworth worked wonders together at Brighton, establishing them as one of the top clubs – if not the top club – in the Premier League when it comes to recruitment.
While Tony Bloom’s innovative talent matching computer programme is believed to be key to that operation, Ashworth has since linked up well with Eddie Howe at Newcastle.
His time at Man United was disastrous and short-lived – but not through any fault of Ashworth’s it seems.
Now he has left the Red Devils after just five months, the 53-year-old is available like Potter.
Both would have a point to prove at West Ham.
And could they really do any worse than Lopetegui and Steidten given the mess the Hammers find themselves in.
Better still there would be no compensation to pay for West Ham were they to hire the former Seagulls duo.
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