West Ham are still in the Premier League relegation zone, but their outlook has changed significantly in the past month. Here, we look at their chances of escaping the drop.
West Ham looked like they were sinking without a trace. A run of eight Premier League games without a win to close out 2025 was bad enough, but they then plumbed new depths in a 3-0 defeat to Wolves on 3 January.
Ahead of that game, Wolves hadn’t won in the league all season and were well on track to break the record for fewest points ever accumulated in a single Premier League campaign.
It was the kind of humiliation that had plenty completely writing off West Ham’s chances of avoiding the drop, and the prospect of them moving on to a third coach of the season didn’t look unrealistic.
A second defeat to one of head coach Nuno Espírito Santo’s other former teams – Nottingham Forest – in four days followed and left them with a measly total of 14 points from 21 Premier League matches.
Historically, such disappointing form over a prolonged period like that almost always means relegation.
Only one team in the competition’s history have taken 14 points or fewer from their first 21 matches and avoided relegation – West Brom’s ‘Great Escape’ team from 2004-05.
That West Brom side were famously the first Premier League team to be bottom at Christmas and then stay up. Across their first 21 matches, they managed just 12 points – they then took 22 from their last 17 outings to avoid the drop on the last day of the season.
Even if we alter the threshold to 15 points from the first 21 matchdays, there have only been another four teams to do enough to retain their top-flight status. In short, then, it was going to take something special for West Ham to not find themselves back in the Championship.
The mood at the club has changed dramatically since the defeat to Forest, however, and their outlook appears rather less miserable as well.
Premier League table after MD25
They are still very much marooned in the relegation zone, but the route out no longer looks quite so impassable.
The Hammers’ 2-0 win at second-bottom Burnley on Saturday was their third victory from their last four matches, and the one game in that spell that they didn’t win was the 3-2 loss to Chelsea in which they led 2-0 and looked very impressive in going ahead.
Over the last four matchdays, only Chelsea and Manchester United (12 each) have taken more points than West Ham’s nine, and Nuno’s side are also scoring at a decent rate, netting at least twice in every match over that run.
Crysencio Summerville is the most notable contributor, with a goal in each of his last five appearances in all competitions, but then the weekend win at Turf Moor also saw new signing Taty Castellanos open his Premier League account.
The Argentinian striker has never been truly prolific before in European football but his intense style of play means he offers a lot in attack. Part of that is his shot frequency, with Castellanos’ average of 3.3 shots per 90 putting him sixth this season among current Premier League players (400+ minutes played).
But to what degree has their outlook changed, and is there even more reason for optimism on the horizon?
We can use the Opta supercomputer’s season projection figures to quantify the change in their prospects over the past few weeks, and they’re certainly going in the right direction.
Ahead of MD22, West Ham were relegated in 89.6% of the supercomputer’s 10,000 projections for the rest of the 2025-26 Premier League season.
Since, that has dropped to 73.6%.
Premier League relegation battle
Of course, that still makes them considerable outsiders to avoid relegation when we look at their chances in comparison to those of their likeliest rivals, but it at least reflects the progress they’ve made recently.
They could have crumbled entirely, but they’re showing some fight and have – essentially out of nowhere – found some momentum.
But with the gap to Forest only being three points, perhaps some might have expected West Ham’s relegation chances to have dropped a bit more.
The reason it hasn’t will be heavily influenced by fixture difficulty.
For instance, the Chelsea game aside, West Ham’s run of games lately has been quite kind when you consider they’ve faced Wolves, Forest, Burnley, Sunderland and Tottenham – all either promoted or struggling teams – since late December. Unsurprisingly, then, life could be about to get a bit tougher.
Using the Opta Power Rankings, we can evaluate the difficulty level of every Premier League team’s next five fixtures. The average rating of West Ham’s upcoming opponents is 92.9; only Wolves (93.7) and Tottenham (93.2) are deemed to have tougher runs over their next five top-flight outings.
Premier League fixture difficulty
West Ham face Man Utd, Liverpool and Manchester City in that time, whereas Forest are deemed to have a kinder run (91.1), which will be influenced by coming up against Wolves next and out-of-form Brighton later this month.
If West Ham can continue to pick up points at a decent rate, however, the fact Leeds and Tottenham are deemed to have similarly tough schedules coming up could be very helpful.
Leeds’ form since the end of November has improved considerably and contributed to their relegation probability dipping from almost 70% to 6.8% in the most recent season projections. But a run of successive games against Chelsea (A), Aston Villa (A) and Man City (H) could really threaten their six-point cushion if West Ham’s momentum continues.
Similarly, Tottenham are looking a little precarious as well. Granted, the supercomputer isn’t particularly nervous for them, as they only went down in 2.3% of the latest simulations, but they’ve got dreadful injury problems and will also be without captain Cristian Romero for their next four matches. Home games against Newcastle and Arsenal next are hardly gimmes.
The fact Leeds, Tottenham and West Ham all have comparably tough runs on the horizon could ultimately mean little actually changes over the next few weeks. Nevertheless, the makeup of their respective schedules arguably means gains for any of them could be even more impactful, both in the table and psychologically.
West Ham’s form has given them a fighting chance, though the legitimacy of any ‘great escape’ discussion should be approached with caution right now. With Man Utd, Liverpool and Man City among those who await, the Hammers’ margin for error remains considerably smaller than that of their rivals because they’re the ones actually in the bottom three.
If West Ham can get through the next few weeks without losing ground on whoever’s in 17th, however, the relegation battle could look rather different heading into April.
Premier League Stats Opta
Enjoy this? Subscribe to our football newsletter to receive exclusive weekly content. You should also follow our social accounts over onX, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.