OPINION
It’s fair to say that West Ham are a work in progress.
The Hammers have fluctuated between promising bursts and underwhelming lulls, and for every step in the right direction, there is still the lingering concern that they will do something that could peg them back again instantly.
Manuel Pellegrini seems to have a decent amount of backing, and so he should, but nobody will be more aware than the Chilean of just how much of a task he still faces to get the team challenging consistently at a level that it should be.
Presumably, that will mean another busy summer in the transfer market, and while a lot will be made of potential incomings, it could be those leaving the club that make the real difference.
In a piece for Football.London, Hammers correspondent Sam Inkersole names 10 first team players who could leave the London Stadium at the end of the season, and it really is a crushing verdict.
Such a sizeable exodus really hammers home just how much deadwood in the squad at the moment, and how much Pellegrini has to do to transform this side into European contenders.
He needs to build from the ground up, and that means stripping away any superfluous wage expenditure that could stand in the way of negotiating for new acquisitions.
Only when that is done, and when he can get a proper idea of how much he actually has at his disposal to spend in the summer will the manager be able to properly start on a project that could be many years in the building.
