The irony shouldn’t be lost on anyone. Declan Rice, of all people, returns on Sunday to play his part in the increasingly likely relegation of West Ham, who he captained to European glory almost three years ago.
Good grief, we’ve really handled brilliantly those short years since he left for Arsenal, haven’t we? Rice returns as a key part of the likely champions after a week of European glory when his new side reached the Champions League final.
His old club sit back in the bottom three, a point adrift of Spurs pretty much needing to win two of our last three games to have any hope of staying in the Premier League.
And West Ham run into the Gunners, who will be on an amazing high now after their triumph over Atletico Madrid. Just our luck, eh?
I’m sure deep down Rice doesn’t want any part of this, the potential demise of the club that put him on the road to glory. He still has mates in our dressing room, but he’ll be supremely professional and do his best to ensure an Arsenal victory to take them one step closer to the title.
Having witnessed his England team mate Marc Guehi’s howler on Monday that gifted Everton a goal and eventually denied Manchester City a victory, Rice sees his side five points clear at the top and odds on for the title.
I’m sure he took in good grace our chant of “You should have joined a big club”, he probably thinks he did now. I don’t begrudge Rice any of his personal success, he did us proud, leading us to victory in Prague and our first trophy in over 40 years. We couldn’t match his ambition or wages.
But I don’t wish Arsenal to even win third prize in the summer fete dog show, obviously, if you can understand the contradiction. Thanks for the memories, Dec.
But seeing Rice’s success just underlines what a mess our club have made of these last three years. Whatever happened to that £100m transfer fee? What have we done to progress the club since Rice and David Moyes left the club?
I mean, the Rice fee was supposed to be the springboard to a rebuild. But a succession of poor appointments, transfer business to cry for, bouncing from window to window with Sullivan’s favoured ‘agent led’ system and we are in such a mess that our best players will need to be sold whatever division we are in. It’s 'Sullivanism' at its worst.
We are the only club who works this way. Smaller, better run, high on analytics and planning. Bournemouth, Brentford and Brighton spring to mind. Crystal Palace too.
All have seen big name stars move on, Bournemouth have seen a list of stars move to much bigger clubs. Palace have lost Marc Guehi and Eberechi Eze, who will both be going to the World Cup.
Brentford lost their manager and promoted from within, as well selling their top striker, Bryan Mbeumo. Bournemouth, Brentford and Brighton sit sixth, seventh and eighth in the Premier League fighting for European qualification.
We sell Rice and we are languishing in 18th. No planning, no progression, no careful, sensible buying to fill the gaps. It’s shameful from the very top down.
How on earth have we gone through three managers, a technical director and find ourselves £104m in debt, up to our necks in pay-day loans and £200m still outstanding in transfer fees, and now on the brink of our second relegation in 16 years of David Sullivan’s ownership?
I pray it doesn’t happen, that we fight and scramble to safety. There is still hope, even if it’s hope that kills you in the end.
But it’s been a frenetic couple of weeks, much of which has done little to present a united front. Our board chose this crucial time to organise share purchases and a string of departures. All this could have waited until the close season.
We’ve seen Karren Brady do a runner, with other key figures quitting, and reinstating a former commercial guy as interim chief executive, Karim Varani. He was last seen quitting Rangers in one of their recent turbulent times where he was chief commercial director in December 2024 to pursue other ventures. He’s meeting our supporters' groups this week.
And of course there’s the cloud over David Sullivan. I’ve seen far too much speculation on social media after a high court hearing and have no intention of commenting further. People should be aware he’s not been charged or found guilty of anything. I’ll leave it there.
None of this should detract from the football, though. There’s three games still to go, but last weekend changed the landscape just a little.
Nottingham Forest, Leeds and Spurs all won and we were mugged 3-0 at Brentford. A game we looked like doing well in until the break. The woodwork hit three times, a couple of penalties appeals turned down and a disallowed goal. By the skin of Dino Mavropanos’ ear, it seems.
Sky’s Refs watch considered that the foul on Pablo Felipe, when a Brentford player was judged to have slipped when bringing the Brazilian down, was a penalty. Frankly I’ve found nothing in the laws about players slipping when clattering an opponent.
So we are back in the bottom three behind Spurs, who are at home to Leeds on Saturday ahead of our game with Arsenal 24 hours later. So you can see why fans are beginning to lose heart.
And the conspiracy theories were in full flow when Aston Villa fielded a feeble, shadow side at home to Spurs. Villa were a disgrace, but you can’t blame them, they can chose anyone from their 25-man squad they wish. We aren’t in danger of relegation because of that, we are there because we have been terrible all season.
Fans have doubted Villa’s integrity, but they have Europe and trying to qualify for next season’s Champions League on their minds. That’s all that concerns them and we did something similar a couple of years back when we were in Europe ahead of the Frankfurt tie. Those were the days, when Rice was leading us to glory.
He’ll remember those times. On Monday, it’s three years since the first leg of the Europa Conference semi-final against Alkmaar at the London Stadium. Now, only three of that starting eleven are still at the club, a 2-1 win with Michel Antonio and Said Benrahma scoring the goals.
And the second leg a week later when Pablo Fornals scored that unforgettable winner. It’s a month until the anniversary of the final in Prague. Maybe Rice is too polite to question in public what has gone so badly wrong since he left. The platform was there, but it has been criminally wasted by incompetent management.
There is another date Rice won’t remember, but Sunday is a telling moment in our recent history. It’s the tenth anniversary of our last match at Upton Park.
None who were there will ever forget it, and there are more than a few amongst us now who don’t remember because they have never witnessed us play at the old Boleyn. You could say that’s the root of our current predicament.
The move to Stratford has many detractors, we have lost maybe as many as 40,000 season ticket holders since then. It was supposed to be the new dawn. Rice has gone on to become an international regular with the World Cup glistening in the not too distant future.
Moyes has gone on to do what Moyes does. Everton’s furious assault on Manchester City underlines that. They fought, fouled, grabbed, bullied and battered City. They might well have gifted the title to Arsenal and Rice. In that case I do hope he’s grateful to his old boss. Where all that sends us, heaven knows; we’ll have a better idea come Sunday evening.
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