West Ham are in a right old ’two-and-eight’ as they say in the East End, and their fans want change, from boardroom to bootroom. Supporters groups are calling for protests at the next home game, against Crystal Palace, and fans have been voting with their feet already, walking out in droves long before the end of this defeat and the 5-1 thrashing by Chelsea three weeks ago.
The London Stadium is a soulless place at times like these, so there is a sense of “there but for the grace of God...” among Tottenham supporters who protested vehemently when Levy proposed moving the club out of their traditional home to the Stratford site, as well as demolishing the iconic stadium that was host for the 2012 London Olympics in order build a state-of-the-art football stadium for Spurs in its place.
Fortunately for Spurs fans, Levy's plans were scuppered by a combination of politicians and the police, and the club ended up building one of the best stadiums in world football on the site of White Hart Lane, which will be hosting Champions League football again when Villareal visit on Tuesday night.
When West Ham left Upton Park in similarly controversial fashion a decade ago, Karren Brady, the club's vice-chair, promised supporters a bright new future with a world-class stadium hosting a world-class team, but has failed to deliver either.
Few fans in football have any love for the stadium, save those away supporters who enjoy taking home the points. This latest defeat, completed in a 20 minute spell after half-time when Pape Matar Sarr, Lucas Bergvall and Micky Van de Ven scored and West Ham were reduced to 10 men because of Tomas Soucek’s studs-up lunge on Joao Palhinha, was the seventh successive game West Ham have failed to win at home, and fans have to go back to February to recall seeing a home victory, over relegated Leicester City.
Graham Potter has lost 13 of his 24 games since replacing Julen Lopetegui in January, and looked crestfallen after his side caved in again. It would have been worse if referee Jarred Gillett had not harshly ruled out Cristian Romero's first half header, or if Thomas Frank's side had decided to go for the kill rather than ease up in the final 25 minutes, mindful of their upcoming Champions League clash.
Frank is able to rotate his side now that he has a stronger squad than the one that Ange Postecoglou led to Europa League success in May. The Aussie, now back with Nottingham Forest was sacked for failing in the league, as Spurs finished in 17th, three places below West Ham.
Yet now it is the Hammers who look set for a relegation battle, and perhaps Potter will be the next fall guy. Their supporters are calling for Brady and chairman David Sullivan to step down, having overseen years of underachievement and poor recruitment, with just one trophy in return, the UEFA Conference League in 2023. The club was valued at around €130m when they and the late David Gold bought it in 2010, while various valuations north of €1 billion are bandied around now. As 'preferred bidders' ahead of Tottenham for the London Stadium, they negotiated a bargain deal that costs them less than €3m a year on a 99-year lease, making the club highly profitable, yet progress on the pitch has been negligible.
Manchester City also took over a municipal stadium after the 2002 Commonwealth Games, and with smart investment by the Abu Dhabi Union Group after they took over in 2008, have become one of the world's most successful clubs.
West Ham fans can only dream of such success, and for most of them a change of ownership would be a good start.
It was a similar situation at Spurs in recent years, with fans wanting Levy out long before he went less than a fortnight ago. But it was boardroom politics rather than fan pressure that did for him. The family of Joe Lewis, an East Ender by birth but resident in the Bahamas, decided Levy's time was up and axed him dramatically, and suggest they are now looking to build Tottenham into a powerhouse of European football.
That appears to be an increasingly distant dream for unhappy Hammers fans, and there are bound to be more protests to come.
WEST HAM (4-3-3): Hermansen 6; Walker-Peters 6, Kilman 6, Mavropanos 5, Diouf 5; Ward-Prowse 5, Soucek 4, Fernandes 5; Bowen 7, Paqueta 5, Summerville 6.
TOTTENHAM (4-3-3): Vicario 6; Porro 6, Romero 7, Van de Ven 8 (Danso 79), Spence 7 (Udogie 71); Sarr 7, Palhinha 7, Bergvall 8 (Johnson 79); Kudus 6, Tel 6 (Odobert 79), Simons 7 (Richarlison 71)
Referee: Jarred Gillett 7