West Ham United are a million miles from where their under fire owners envisioned them being this season.
“The imbalance in the squad and the crazy wages the Icelandics were paying that brought the club to its knees.”
“We believe in our managers and give them the time and support they need.”
“We have a seven-year plan to get them into the Champions League.”
“Over the next seven years we will spend a lot of money.”
Those were just some of the bold statements made by David Sullivan when he and fellow co-owner David Gold completed their takeover of West Ham in January 2010.
That interview – as reported at the time by the Guardian – gave West Ham fans new hope after the doomed Icelandic regime.
But now seven years on West Ham are in complete disarray at the bottom of the Premier League with no points and a minus eight goal difference.
It is still early days in the new season but the stark reality is West Ham look a million miles from the Champions League side Sullivan pledged they would be by now.
And much of that is down to the board failing to deliver the big money signings promised when the club left their Boleyn Ground home of 112 years for the former Olympic Stadium last summer.
A net spend of just £10million in the transfer market this summer has given rise to a groundswell of anger and vitriol from supporters who plan protests at their first home game of the season against Huddersfield on Monday night.
The owners had done a good job of stabilising West Ham of that there is no doubt.
But they are equally guilty of destabilising them with broken promises over the move to the London Stadium, lack of net investment and their very public way of doing business.
“We are deeply and passionately involved in West Ham. It is where I have wanted to be for 20 years,” Sullivan told BBC Five Live back in 2010, as reported by the Guardian.
That was two years before the London Olympics and it was clear then the stadium was at the forefront of the owners’ future plans.
“It is the natural home for West Ham,” he added.
“We hope to persuade the government to let us move into the new Olympic Stadium and I believe the people of east London would support that move.”
Support it they did, selling out 52,000 season tickets in each of the first two seasons.
But West Ham fans do not take kindly to being taken for granted.
And a brief flirtation with the Champions League places in Bilic’s first season in charge is the closest they are likely to get to the Champions League anytime soon.
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