I do not believe this set of 20 previews has a single entry that is relentlessly negative or devoid of a reason for a team’s fans to be optimistic. I apologize to West Ham fans who are excited for the new season, but this is the one that will come closest. The team was bad last year, there is no reason to believe recent transfers have made them any better, and they would do well to simply avoid relegation this season.

The good news is that this piece is being released during the first week of August, and there’s plenty of time left in the transfer window for West Ham’s recruitment department to rectify the situation. But this is a team that was poor with Mohamed Kudus in it last season, and has not purchased any obvious impact player after selling him on to a direct rival.

Manager Graham Potter previously achieved good results with Brighton, but was unable to improve the team’s fortunes after taking over midway through the previous campaign. The optimistic case for a decent Hammers season is that he’s now had a full preseason to implement his preferred tactics, and West Ham should no longer be learning a system on the fly. It remains to be seen if that system is a good idea.

Poor. Stinky.

While the Hammers might have been a bit unlucky to underperform their xG, a -12 goal differential wouldn’t have changed their fortunes much more from the actual result.

West Ham started the season under Julien Lopetegui, playing with an extremely disjointed press that left a ton of space in midfield, led to them getting repeatedly exposed on the break. Potter rectified that problem with a more solid shape, but at the expense of an attacking threat.

Their defense got better as the season went on, and you can see how fast that changed when Potter came in. But the attack was just always horrific.

The radars below have omitted the Lopetegui part of the season, and are just focused on what happened after Potter came in. Which, on the attacking end of the pitch, was… nothing. The team was so bad at everything that it’s not easy to discern a playing philosophy from their statistical profile.

They crossed and took long goal kicks an exactly average amount, and everything else about the team was simply very poor.

The defense is a different story, though. West Ham had very low PPDA and did almost no pressing. They let their opponents pass the ball around in their own half as much as they wanted, waiting until they were extremely close to the box to engage defensively. This produced decent results; opponents did not have a ton of clear shots or high xG per shot.

Potter usually set his team up in a 3-5-2 shape, with some flexibility in midfield configuration. Most often, this featured a single holding midfielder with two roaming 8s, though he did play a double pivot a few times. The team also used a 3-4-3 shape sometimes, though this feels unlikely to happen going forward with the sale of Kudus and no replacement being purchased.

West Ham has experimented with a back 4 a couple times this preseason, though I get the idea it was mostly to get the players that Potter felt needed minutes onto the pitch, rather than workshopping a new tactic. They’ve played their best in a back 3, and should stick with it.

Not much so far, besides the one massive sale, though they’ve got some upgrades in at the wingback spots.

Players out: CM Carlos Soler, ST Evan Ferguson, W Mohamed Kudus

Kudus is the big loss, a £55m sale to Tottenham. He never showed his best for the Hammers, and I think they actually did well to get that much money for him. But a sale like that is only a good one if you use the money to improve the squad, which has not yet happened.

Soler and Ferguson were on loan last season and have returned to their parent clubs.

Players in: LB El Hadji Malick Diouf, RB Kyle Walker-Peters, ST Callum Wilson

While I have done a lot of crapping on Potter and the West Ham recruitment department in this piece, I think the wingback moves are pretty good. Walker-Peters is a reliable wingback who was signed on a free, and should be better than Aaron Wan-Bissaka going forward. Diouf is a bit of a risk coming from Slavia Prague, but has great attacking numbers.

If the Hammers are going to play a defense-first 3-5-2, a really good way to add some attacking threat to that system is to get some wingbacks who fit the system and advance the ball.

Wilson is perpetually injured, but has been great when fit. I like a West Ham-level team taking a risk on that profile, except they already had one of those guys in Niklas Füllkrug.

Summary:

Diouf and Walker-Peters were both good last season and account for a lot of the positive output here. But West Ham needs to replace Kudus’ goal and assist threat, and I’d expect another signing before the window shuts.

At first glance, this radar might not seem like anything special. Decent forward profile. Guy who is OK at everything but not elite at anything, big whoop.

Except Bowen did this on last season’s West Ham team, a dreadful side that should not have allowed anyone to put up big numbers. Compared to Kudus’ numbers, Bowen looks like Mohamed Salah. The likelihood that they could find another player with this shooting, dribbling and passing output to replace him is extremely low.

The Hammers have been blessed to find an excellent all-around, versatile attacker who is good enough to play for a richer club, but seems pretty happy to be the best player and captain for West Ham. He’s regularly carrying the side on his back and is the primary reason they’ve avoided relegation battles recently. They should build him a statue.

Julien Lopetegui very much deserved the sack last season. I thought the Hammers’ board was quite patient, honestly, given how hopeless the side looked under his guidance. But it was still an instance of a manager getting fired mid-season after signing a multi-year contract, indicating that the board is willing to make changes if they feel things are going poorly.

Given that we already have an 18-game sample of Potter not performing very well, I’m very curious to see how many bad results he can endure. He’s currently 6th favorite in the sack race, and those are some strangely long odds vs. Keith Andrews and Eddie Howe, who are obviously not going anywhere before January even in a disaster scenario.

With what appears to be significant reluctance by ownership to back Potter with impact signings that fit his specific tactical system (and might not fit the next manager’s ideas), I’m utterly unconvinced that Potter’s bosses believe in him.

The only starters I’m sure about are Bowen, Lucas Paqueta and Alphonse Areola. After that, there’s a lot to discuss. Potter has rotated heavily in preseason as many coaches do, and no clear patterns have emerged.

After last season’s injury-filled disaster, Füllkrug has been playing and looks in line for a starting role. I’ve gone for the new signings at the starting wingback spots. I think there are 4 co-starters across the back line and Konstantinos Mavrapanos will play plenty, even though he’s omitted here. Nayef Aguerd has been playing at LCB after returning from loan and seems like a good tactical fit.

Central midfield is the toughest spot. James Ward-Prowse is a set piece wizard, but isn’t good at much else. Edson Álvarez is the best pure DM, but not a terribly versatile player. I think we’ll see more of the all-rounders, Tomas Soucek and Guido Rodriguez.

Also, it’ll be interesting to see how much Potter integrates the young talent on the squad. Oliver Scarles was impressive in limited minutes last year, while Freddie Potts and George Earthy are coming off productive Championship loans.

My colleagues have collectively voted for West Ham to avoid relegation, and I do think they are marginally deeper than Leeds and Wolves. But the race for 18th might be the tightest it’s been in a couple years, and I do think West Ham is one of the team that will be in the mix.

Prediction: 16th