Robbie Savage’s Premier League predictions: Arsenal recovery, Everton nightmare, Liverpool disaster
Former Premier League midfielder Robbie Savage returns to shed light on this weekend’s action in the English top-flight.
West Ham United are a Premier League football club based in East London, England and current holders of the Europa Conference League trophy.
West Ham are also renowned for several iconic players including 1966 World Cup winners Bobby Moore, Sir Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters - all products of the club's academy.
West Ham play at the 66,000-seater London Stadium in Stratford after moving from the Boleyn Ground in Upton Park in 2016. The club's nickname is the Hammers or the Irons, after their original name Thames Ironworks.
West Ham fans will always point out the club also won the World Cup in 1966 for England, as the club provided all the goalscorers (Hurst hat-trick and a Peters strike) and the captain who lifted the trophy - Bobby Moore.
West Ham were founded in 1895 as Thames Ironworks. In 1900, the team name changed to West Ham United, but still they still use the nickname The Irons, as well as The Hammers.
West Ham were promoted to the top flight in 1923 and played in the first FA Cup final at the old Wembley Stadium.
In 1974, John Lyall took over from Greenwood and the new manager enjoyed his fair share of success, too.
West Ham United beat Fulham 2-0 in the 1975 FA Cup final with Alan Taylor scoring both goals. The Hammers team that day included Frank Lampard Sr., the father of the player who would go on to become Chelsea's record goalscorer. Fulham's team included former Hammer Bobby Moore.
West Ham won the FA Cup again in 1980, with a rare headed goal from Sir Trevor Brooking, another product of the team's academy who made 647 appearances for the club.
West Ham have never won the top-flight title. Their best finish came in the 1985/86 season when they finished third behind Everton and champions Liverpool.
During the season the Hammers went on an 18-game unbeaten run, thrashing Newcastle 8-1 along the way.
The 46-goal strike partnership between Frank McAvennie (26) and Tony Cottee (20) was the most prolific in the league that season.
The team have gone down in West Ham folklore as the 'Boys of 86' and are still viewed by fans as one of the best teams ever to pull on the claret and blue jersey.
Manager Lyall had a very small squad at his disposal, and mainly used just thirteen regular first team players, including West Ham legends Phil Parkes, Ray Stewart, Alvin Martin and Alan Devonshire.
West Ham entered the new millennium off the back of a 1999 Intertoto Cup triumph. They beat Metz 3-2 on aggregate in the finals with Frank Lampard Jr. among those on the scoresheet.
After two seasons in the Championship they returned to the Premier League in 2005/06 and also lost out in the final of the FA Cup on penalties to Liverpool.
Payet forced a move to Marseille in 2017 and West Ham struggled to achieve the same level of success. Manager Slaven Bilic was sacked in November 2017 and replaced by David Moyes who steered the club away from relegation.
Midway through the 2019/20 season, West Ham were in danger of relegation and Moyes was again brought back to the London Stadium, this time to replace Pellegrini. Under Moyes the club finished 16th, five points clear of the relegation zone.
Bringing back Moyes proved to be a decision well worth making.
Driven by an Michail Antonio, Jarrod Bowen and Declan Rice, Moyes' West Ham also had an impressive 2021/22 campaign, reaching the semi-finals of the Europa League and finishing seventh in the Premier League. They qualified for Europe for the second season in a row but this time for the Europa Conference League.
After a disappointing 2022/23 season in the Premier League, where West Ham only managed to finish in 14th just six points clear of relegation, Moyes found his job under threat. But in Europe it was a totally different kettle of fish.
Now Moyes has written his name in West Ham folklore, joining Greenwood and Lyall as trophy-winning Hammers managers. A place in the 2023/24 Europa League meant the club qualified for Europe three campaigns in a row, for the first time.
Declan Rice became only the third captain, along with Moore and Bonds, to lift silverware in the club's 128-year history.
A month after lifting the Europa Conference League trophy, Rice completed his long-awaited transfer from West Ham to Arsenal in a British record £105million deal.
North London's Tottenham Hotspur and west London's Chelsea are also fierce rivals, and have also resulted in many hooligan-related clashes between supporters.
West Ham supporters are famously passionate and partisan. The club anthem 'I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles' is sung at every match and is over 100 years old.
The Inter City Firm (ICF), is the hooligan firm notoriously associated with West Ham. Mainly active in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, the ICF has inspired many books and the films Green Street, Cass and The Firm which starred Oscar winner Gary Oldman.
West Ham are the 15th most valuable football team on the planet according to Forbes' May 2023 calculation, with a value of £870M.
The club is owned by David Sullivan, Daniel Kretinsky and the Gold family, after David Gold passed away in 2023.
Former Premier League midfielder Robbie Savage returns to shed light on this weekend’s action in the English top-flight.
West Ham face a mammoth task as they attempt to overturn a 2-0 first-leg deficit against Bundesliga winners Bayer Leverkusen in the Europa League on Thursday (2000 BST).
West Ham’s European hopes suffered a second blow in the space of four days after a meek 2-0 home defeat by Fulham.
Planet Sport ambassador Robbie Savage returns to preview another big weekend in the Premier League as the race for the title heats up.
There’s a big game feel in Leverkusen as the Bundesliga leaders host West Ham in the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final this Thursday night (2000 BST).
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Robbie Savage looks ahead to the latest round of Premier League fixtures as the race for the title continues to intensify.