THERE is a sense of desperate deja vu at West Ham.
Five years ago, fans marched against the owners with the Hammers sat in the relegation zone – just as they did on Saturday.
Graham Potter’s fate is all but decided
David Sullivan watches the 2-1 home defeat to Crystal Palace
Back then their march was fuelled by anger at perceived mismanagement and a move to a stadium no one wanted – just as it was on Saturday.
The only difference between the two days, five years apart, was that responded with a win then but fellthis time at the hands of .
, only appointed in January after ‘s eight month stint, is on borrowed time.
The trigger was not pulled on Saturday night, but successors are being sounded out and there support from within the boardroom for a change.
West Ham have enjoyed three successive years in Europe and a European trophy between the two protests, spending more than £630million on new signings since.
How, then, are they back to square one?
Potter will take the fall this time, his future now a case of when and not if, just as Lopetegui did in January and before him.
Each had their own problems, even Moyes by the end.
Lopetegui had fractious relationships with too many players and, while Potter arrived to find a bloated, unbalance and overpaid squad – his struggles to simply organise a defence are telling.
The inability to defend corners, as was on show again against Crystal Palace, is a sideshow to the real problems at West Ham.
A promise of a world class stadium for a world class team when they moved from Upton Park to the London Stadium feels light years away from being realised almost a decade on.
Instead they are stuck inside an arena of apathy.
It is fitting that Friday saw the announcement of Take That bringing ‘The Circus’ to the London Stadium next summer.
As so often is the case at any club, when the form improves problems melt away.
The London Stadium is capable of big atmospheres on big nights, anyone there for their European runs will tell you that.
But it is an issue which will never vanish, just fade into the background for spells.
Opposing managers often view a trip to Stratford as among the easiest in the Premier League and a visiting player once described the atmosphere as being like a training session.
In truth, the Stadium is a problem that must be lived with rather than solved.
Captain Jarrod Bowen looks distraught at the final whistle
West Ham fans protest before the Palace game
Other areas need serious attention and that will not come with simply changing the manager.
Recruitment for a long time has been a sore spot. There have been some successes; , and were all fine signings.
But stacked up against the failures (Gianluca Scamacca, Maxwell Cornet, Said Benrahma, , Danny Ings, Sebastian Haller, , Guido Rodriguez and on, and on) so much money and potential has been wasted.
drove West Ham towards their most successful moments under Moyes before being sold for a record £105m.
That cash, which could have built a new era in Stratford, has been desperately wasted.
The structure has been shuffled, from Rob Newman to Tim Steidten and now Kyle Macauley, but regardless of who is in a senior recruitment post – one man makes the final call, co-owner .
His decisions are, of course, made in good faith to try and improve his club – but too many are going wrong after poor advice has been taken.
There are fears within the club that without a coherent, more independent structure below Sullivan they will be left behind by the footballing world.
Many counterparts praise Sullivan’s ability to get a deal done, but too often West Ham are now pursuing the wrong ones.
Few of their summer signings involved a battle against Premier League rivals for a signature.
Signing so many players from relegated clubs, three from Southampton in three years following their two relegations, has also been criticised by industry figures.
These are players bruised from a brutal campaign with their former club coming into a squad which lacks confidence, leadership and trust.
A managerial change may bring brief respite and a bounce, but the foundations of West Ham are where the work needs to be done if they are to compete regularly.
