I find this a really interesting point because to me it see…

I find this a really interesting point because to me it seems demonstrably true but also symptomatic of why the West Ham board are never going to turn around their reputation without a sea change in their thinking. (Thread, mute as appropriate)

A few years ago I was called into a boardroom and asked: \u201cHow do we turn around the headlines for our team?\u201d \u201cWin games,\u201d was my answer. Hugely simplistic and it doesn\u2019t solve deep rooted problems that require greater surgery and strategy from creative brains, but it helps.
— Lee Clayton (@LeeClayton_) January 30, 2021

“Win more” is the footballing solution of taking a painkiller for toothache. The pain goes away for a bit but ultimately you still need a painful root canal. And West Ham have needed that for a long time. This current limited success is *despite* the Board, not because of them.

Lest we forget, Moyes did a fine job first time around and was let go so we could pursue a bigger name, waste tens of millions and undo his good work. They’re lucky he was still available and willing to work for them again. They don’t deserve him.

But winning is helpful because a lot of the time, fans struggle to articulate what needs changing. So if the team is doing well it’s easy for the media to say “You’re fourth - what more do these West Ham fans want!” and for fans not to have an easily digestible answer.

But we know that a losing streak will arrive, we’ll suffer some bad luck and some injuries and then it won’t seem so rosy. And at that point we’ll be accused of being fickle, when the reality is that the underlying problems have been present for the entirety of the GSB reign:

- underinvestment in the infrastructure of the club (Academy, scouting)
- disregard for modernization (using a single agent over an analytics department who don’t personally profit from player moves, no true Director of Football)
- the relatively subpar training facilities

- the long, interminable struggle to get the Club to engage with our supporter representatives rather than forcing us to engage with theirs
- the continued failure of a transfer policy driven by ageing, big name players on long, eye watering contracts
- the Sun column

Some of this has stopped with Moyes (eg: transfers) but do we have any faith this would carry on if he left? What structural change has happened to drive this change? Nothing - it’s just that Moyes is good. If he goes what would stop us signing the next Wilshere? Nothing

If Moyes left tomorrow, they’d hire Benitez and maybe we’d carry on being successful and maybe we wouldn’t but we still wouldn’t have had that root canal we needed. And eventually, it will flare up again and there will be more unrest because nothing material has changed.

This season is highly unusual. We have a chance at something, just as in 15/16. They blew their chance then and might again. I hope they don’t and I hope we miraculously make the CL/win the cup. But I’d still want that material change because the structure of WHU is still wrong

I’m not so vehemently #GSBOUT out as others, because you do have to be careful what you wish for. I’d characterize my position more as #properstructuralchangein I appreciate this is less catchy but it might have a more immediate chance of happening.

To be clear - of course I want new, wealthy, progressive, decent owners of West Ham - I just think that’s a very unlikely combination so maybe trying to inch the current board closer to competency is also a good interim strategy. Also, win games! As Lee said - it works. For a bit

#properstructuralchangein