The transfer window, which ran from 16 June until 1 September has finally closed. Our starting point was a squad that finished last season in 14th position, without any European football to complicate our campaign.
A starting point that had seen us win just 11 league matches during all of last season, shuffle through a manager in only 20 games and see his replacement come in, steady the ship and get us to safety, amassing - if that is the right word - 43 points along the way.
The fact that both Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur finished below us matters little : them being worse does not make us good. The three clubs that were relegated last season were the three who had come up, but already this season there are some signs the promoted sides are made of stronger stuff, with Sunderland already accruing half the points that Saints did in the whole of last season by the end of August.
And our top signing, this window, has come from that Southampton team. Now to these eyes, at the City Ground on Sunday, Mateus Fernandes looked a decent enough player; young, athletic and mobile, and it may be that we have got the better of their two big ticket departures. Time will tell.
Our other new midfielder, Soungoutou Magassa is another youngster. Raw, inexperienced but with a high ceiling in terms of where he might reach. The "might" is the key word there, he will certainly run around, but undoubtedly the pace of the game in this country will test his ability to adapt and make good clean tackles without collecting a string of yellows.
Between the sticks, Mads Hermansen for Lukasz Fabianski gives the coach a goalkeeper more comfortable with the ball at his feet, but the absence of a powerful, strong in the air, ball-winning centre back in front of him may prove difficult. The most likely outcome of our new 'keeper arriving will be the resurrection of Konstantinos Mavropanos as a starter each week - an honest player, but one prone to a rush of blood to the head - despite the eleventh-hour arrival of Igor Julio.
£20million full/wing back Malick Diouf looks promising, while Kyle Walker-Peters - also at full back - and Callum Wilson as the striker complete the arrivals. The latter two arriving on "free" transfers complete the incomings, two ok players with solid track records: minimal risk from a financial perspective, but neither, surely would have been on the Head Coach's list of "must buys".
So far, so ordinary, a typical West Ham United transfer window, a mixed bag of arrivals.
The problem however is in the departure lounge. We simply cannot get shot of players who have turned out to be either bad eggs, unlucky signings, or simply unloved, while seeing one of only three star players offloaded to a bitter rival for a knock down fee.
Mo Kudus had to go because, frankly, we needed the money to fund the few incomings that did arrive. Edson Alvarez has been despatched to Turkey on loan, but he will be back next summer to drain an inflated wage packet out of us before eventually departing on a cut-price deal somewhere next 1 September.
Maxwel Cornet, has gone to Genoa on loan, in another subsidised deal, and Nayef Agured appeared to be stuck in an airport lounge, Tom Hanks style, neither here , nor there, until Tuesday morning (2 September). Thankfully the deal with Marseille was permanent and we were able to get him off the books.
The snail-paced Guido Rodriguez remains, for now, but I suspect any moment now his agent is being informed he will, not play a single minute more for West Ham United, and he can look forward to a year of training alone at Rush Green, or take the Saudi exit. They'll be some haggling but with a bit of luck, he will depart, a decent enough footballer in the wrong league.
Lewis Orford and Kaelyn Casey have gone out on loan, George Earthy we are told will "fight for his place", three good decisions there. Fred Potts, too, will have to battle it out for a starting berth, but that's professional football.
Coaches and managers don't have favourites, they pick whoever they think will keep them in a job by winning games of football.
Overall, it's been a bare minimum window, one determined by the club's shaky financial position, a position created by a poor Premier League campaign last season and a stadium we do not own with minimal income generating capability. As for all of the PSR restrictions, well, let us not forget our club voted to bring those rules in, undoubtedly in the belief they would provide a convenient reason not to invest money.
We've spent just enough to avoid the drop, maybe a finish in the 12th-15th zone? Head Coach Graham Potter backed with the absolute minimum needed. Is this what we relocated the club for? Minimal investment and a campaign that amounts to an ambition that stretches no further than bare survival?
All of us that still go, watching football in a hated, soulless, Athletics stadium that fails to inspire the players, must now be asking just one question.
Is this it?
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