West Ham promotion was being talked about as almost a given before the Championship season started. I wasn’t convinced before a ball had even been kicked — and after taking one point from their opening two games, I’m even less convinced now.
Before a ball had even been kicked in the Championship this season, I had doubts about West Ham.
On Friday 14 August, just before the EFL season got under way, Paul Ross and I discussed the Hammers on talkSPORT Extra Time and whether an immediate return to the Premier League was really as straightforward as many seemed to think.
My argument then was simple.
The Championship doesn’t care how big your stadium is, how much your players cost or what division you were playing in three months earlier.
It is an unforgiving league.
And two games into West Ham’s promotion campaign, I’ve seen absolutely nothing that makes me want to change my mind.
Video: Paul Ross and Stuart Armour discuss West Ham promotion on talkSPORT Extra Time
West Ham promotion isn’t a foregone conclusion
West Ham went into the season as one of the favourites for promotion.
On paper, you can understand why.
They’ve just come down from the Premier League, they’ve kept an experienced manager in Nuno Espírito Santo and, crucially, captain Jarrod Bowen decided to remain at the London Stadium rather than pursue a move back to the top flight.
But this idea that relegated Premier League clubs simply bounce straight back needs challenging.
Look at last season.
Southampton finished fourth in the Championship and still failed to gain promotion. Leicester City, another club with recent Premier League history, finished 23rd and were relegated to League One after a six-point deduction.
Nothing is guaranteed down here.
West Ham are finding that out already.
One point doesn’t tell the whole story
If you looked at West Ham’s opening game in isolation, a 2-2 draw away at Burnley doesn’t sound disastrous.
Burnley came down from the Premier League as well. Turf Moor isn’t an easy place to go. Take the point and move on.
Except that’s not what happened.
West Ham were 2-0 up with less than ten minutes remaining.
Max Kilman had given them an early lead before Manor Solomon made it 2-0 in the 72nd minute. Zian Flemming then scored an 83rd-minute penalty and equalised in stoppage time.
That’s not a point gained.
That’s two points thrown away.
And in a 46-game Championship season, those moments add up frighteningly quickly.
Nuno himself spoke after that game about needing reinforcements, particularly in attacking areas. That told you something about where West Ham’s squad currently is.
Then came Charlton.
Losing to Charlton should worry West Ham
This is the result that would concern me far more.
West Ham’s first league match back at the London Stadium ended in a 2-1 defeat to Charlton Athletic.
Lloyd Jones and Tyreece Campbell put Charlton two goals ahead before new West Ham striker Joël Piroe pulled one back. Taty Castellanos then had the opportunity to rescue a point from the penalty spot in stoppage time — and hit the post.
Charlton deserve credit.
They’ve started the season brilliantly and have won both of their opening matches.
But context matters.
This is a club that finished 19th in the Championship last season, six points above the relegation places.
If West Ham genuinely expect to go straight back to the Premier League, these are the sorts of home games they need to be winning.
Instead, after two league matches, they’ve taken one point from six.
I’m not declaring their season over after two games.
That would be ridiculous.
But when you’re one of the promotion favourites, you don’t have unlimited time to find your feet.
The Championship is too competitive for that.
I don’t blame Nuno
If West Ham don’t go up, I don’t think Nuno Espírito Santo will necessarily be the reason.
I rate him.
We’ve seen what he can do.
He took Wolves into the Championship in 2017 and guided them to the title in his first season before establishing them as a very good Premier League side. More recently, he did an excellent job at Nottingham Forest. West Ham themselves have acknowledged his previous experience of successfully navigating this division.
He knows how to organise a team.
He knows how to get results.
He understands English football.
My concern is the squad he’s being asked to do it with.
West Ham lost important players following relegation and although they’ve added quality — Manor Solomon has arrived permanently and Joël Piroe has joined from Leeds initially on loan — I’m not convinced the overall squad is strong enough to dominate this Championship.
That’s very different from saying it’s a bad team.
It isn’t.
I just think there are several other very good teams trying to win the same prize.
Is keeping Jarrod Bowen actually the right decision?
This will probably be the part West Ham supporters disagree with me about most.
Jarrod Bowen is obviously an excellent footballer.
He’s their captain, he’s proven in the Premier League and he’s more than capable of being one of the best players in the Championship.
He also deserves credit for staying.
After relegation there was Premier League interest, but Bowen publicly committed himself to West Ham and said helping the club win promotion would bring him enormous satisfaction. His contract still runs until 2030.
Emotionally, I completely understand why West Ham supporters love that.
From a squad-building perspective, I’m not sure it’s as straightforward.
Bowen is an extremely expensive asset to carry in the Championship.
One industry estimate cited by The Guardian puts his annual salary at approximately £7.8million, while West Ham’s overall wage bill is enormous by Championship standards. Those numbers are estimates rather than figures published by the club, so they shouldn’t be treated as exact, but they demonstrate the financial difference between West Ham and most of their opponents.
I’m not saying Bowen takes up most of West Ham’s budget.
He doesn’t.
The bigger question is opportunity cost.
That’s why the West Ham promotion debate has to be about more than simply whether Bowen is the best player in the division.
West Ham have decided that Bowen is the man they’re building around.
That’s fine — but if keeping your highest-profile player makes it harder to spread resources around four or five other positions that need improving, is that necessarily the best way to build a promotion-winning Championship squad?
One superstar doesn’t get you promoted.
A squad does.
Everybody wants to beat West Ham
There’s another challenge I think West Ham are going to encounter throughout this season.
They’re a scalp.
The London Stadium, Premier League players, a recent European trophy in the cabinet — teams are going to enjoy going there.
For some Championship players, an away game against West Ham will feel like a Premier League occasion.
They’ll be up for it.
Their supporters will be up for it.
Nobody is going to arrive at the London Stadium thinking they should politely roll over because West Ham were in the Premier League last season.
Charlton have already demonstrated that perfectly.
That’s what makes this division so difficult.
You don’t just have to be better.
You have to deal with opponents who desperately want to prove they’re as good as you.
Forty-six times.
Look at the competition
Then you have to consider who West Ham are actually competing against.
I’ve got Wolves, Wrexham and Southampton as my three promoted teams.
And beyond those three, there are plenty of clubs capable of getting involved.
Millwall finished third last season.
Middlesbrough reached the play-off final.
There are clubs like West Bromwich Albion who will expect to improve.
The Championship has even expanded its play-offs this season, meaning teams finishing third through eighth now have a route into the promotion picture. Fifth plays eighth and sixth plays seventh in one-off eliminators before the traditional semi-final stage.
That makes the battle even more unpredictable.
My prediction for West Ham?
I could see them getting into those play-offs and then failing to win them.
I could also genuinely see them finishing ninth and missing out altogether.
That’s how competitive I think this league is.
West Ham need to improve quickly
Two games don’t define a 46-game season.
West Ham could win their next five matches and suddenly everything looks completely different.
That’s football.
For West Ham, promotion is still absolutely possible, but the West Ham promotion campaign already looks far less straightforward than many expected.
But the warning signs I spoke about before the season have already appeared.
They’ve thrown away a two-goal lead.
They’ve lost at home to a team that finished 19th last season.
They’ve taken one point from six.
And the squad still doesn’t convince me that it is clearly better than everybody else chasing promotion.
West Ham have a good manager.
They have some very good players.
They have financial advantages most Championship clubs can only dream about.
But none of those things automatically earn you promotion.
That’s the mistake I think people make when looking at relegated Premier League clubs.
The Championship has a habit of swallowing reputations.
Southampton found that out last season.
Leicester found it out in a much more dramatic way.
And unless West Ham improve significantly, I think they’re going to find it out too.
I said before the season started that I wasn’t convinced they’d go straight back up.
Two matches later?
I’m even more convinced they won’t.