Worst form in Premier League era - the stats that underline West Ham's real relegation fears

Santo under pressure 

West Ham’s 3-0 defeat to Wolves on Saturday not only cemented their spot in the bottom three of the Premier League but also plunged the club into further chaos. The defeat at Molineux was Nuno Espírito Santo’s fifteenth game in charge of the Hammers and may well be his last, having won just two and drawn five games to date. Since replacing Graham Potter at the club, Santo’s side have picked up just 11 league points - the third worst return in the English top-flight in that time period and now leaves West Ham four points adrift of safety.

“I don’t recall one day that I felt so bad on a football pitch like today,” lamented the West Ham boss after Saturday’s defeat. “I have to apologise to the fans. For those that travelled, it was embarrassing. There’s not much I can say other than we are sorry. We are sorry because what we showed was not good enough. Today was the worst performance we had.” Recent reports have suggested that the club could turn to former manager Slaven Bilic to step in and rescue their season, but the Athletic have since reported that West Ham have no immediate plans to sack Santo.

However, loyalty only goes so far in football and the London club are undoubtedly in serious risk of facing relegation at the end of the season. Not only is Santo’s side third bottom of the league table and just two points above Burnley, but their lack of points at this stage of the season is more or less unprecedented in the club’s modern history. As we can see in the graphic above, West Ham have never had fewer points after 20 league games than they do now in the last 15 seasons.

In fact, the club have never had so few points at this stage of the season since they returned to the Premier League in 2012. And, curiously, even in the 2010/11 season when they did eventually get relegated, they had three more points on the league table at this stage of the campaign than they do this season. While the club have come close to this level of turmoil - they had 15 points after 20 league games in the 02/02, 13/14 and 22/23 campaigns - they’ve actually never picked up as few points as this season’s tally in the Premier League era.

To the club’s credit, they’ve looked to immediately rectify this by acting fast in the January transfer window. Despite the transfer period being just a few days old, the English side have already spent €52 million signing two strikers in the form of Gil Vicente talent Pablo and Lazio talisman Taty Castellanos in the hope that both can add goals to a team that doesn’t have a single player in double digits for goals this season. But it remains to be seen whether that will be enough to turn around an unprecedented disaster at West Ham.