They have secured arguably the best result of the year and several of the worst. They qualified for Europe via the Fair Play League and have already had five players red-carded and a manager sent to the stands this season. They have lost over 90 minutes to a Maltese team, Birkirkara, and won at Arsenal.
West Ham United go to Anfield on Saturday as enigmas. There has been a paradox at every turn.
After one of the most ignominious European campaigns ever conducted by an English club, they triumphed away at the Emirates Stadium. Lest that appear the start of something special, they duly lost at home to pre-season relegation favourites Leicester City and Bournemouth.
Their co-owner David Sullivan suggested Queens Park Rangers’ Charlie Austin had “no ligaments in his knee” as he questioned the fitness record of a forward who, after 74 starts in the past two years, has appeared rather more often than any West Ham striker.
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One of the sidelined, Ecuadorian forward Enner Valencia, criticised the club’s medical staff this week for preventing him from seeing another doctor.
After appointing a manager, in Slaven Bilic, who was a high-class centre-back, they have conceded six goals in their last two games. As they prepare to move into the Olympic Stadium next summer, it is of overriding importance that they do so as a Premier League club, yet they parted company with a manager, in Sam Allardyce, who amounts to a guarantee against relegation.
Lose on Saturday and they could end August in the relegation zone. But given the illogicality of everything that has happened, there is a temptation to tip West Ham to beat Liverpool precisely because there are few rational reasons to believe it is possible.
This has been a bogey ground. Their last victory at Anfield came in 1963 – the future World Cup winners Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters scoring, just as they would do in the 1966 final – and, while West Ham are struggling to defend, Liverpool have yet to concede a goal this season.
West Ham will be forced into a defensive reshuffle as right-back Carl Jenkinson joins goalkeeper Adrian in serving a suspension. It seems typically perverse, however, that their sole league win came without a specialist right-back, when James Tomkins was performing his best impression of one against Arsenal.
That, in turn, should grant a reprieve to the most expensive defender in West Ham’s history. The £8.5 million (Dh48.2m) Italian Angelo Ogbonna was substituted in the first half of the 4-3 loss to Bournemouth.
“I have to accept the coach’s decision but I was not playing badly,” he wrote on Twitter afterwards.
That was a flattering interpretation. It might have been more accurate to say he was not playing as badly as Jenkinson or Aaron Cresswell, the club’s reigning Player of the Year, who endured a particularly harrowing afternoon. West Ham’s full-backs represented two of their success stories under Allardyce last season. They have been exposed in the current campaign.
Bilic’s diamond midfield worked superbly against Arsenal. Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri and his Bournemouth counterpart Eddie Howe identified the lack of width and targeted the isolated full-backs.
West Ham’s rapid change in fortunes was epitomised by Reece Oxford. The 16-year-old midfielder became the second-youngest starter in Premier League history against Arsenal and was rightly praised for a precocious performance against Mesut Ozil. He was then hauled off at half time against Leicester. He missed the Bournemouth game when Kevin Nolan, who is twice his age and at least twice as slow, came in, with Allardyce’s ally becoming Bilic’s lumbering striker.
Five days later, Nolan’s West Ham career ended abruptly. He departed by mutual consent on Thursday.
Riven by suspensions and injuries, their squad already looked stretched as mooted targets such as Alex Song, Simone Zaza and Emmanuel Adebayor have yet to arrive. Under normal circumstances, they would seem ideal opponents for Liverpool, but these are not normal times.
The only predictable thing about West Ham is the unpredictability. The only certainty lies in uncertainty.
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