While the club’s owners are clearly the main culprits, Graham Potter should be hanging his head in shame for the mess he left behind at West Ham.
Make no mistake about it, West Ham’s board are the ones calling the shots and it is they who must shoulder the ultimate blame for the club’s decline over the last two years.
Nobody is under any illusions the owners are ground zero for the problems at West Ham United on and off the pitch.
From their managerial missteps to the failed Tim Steidten experiment, awful haphazard and ever-changing recruitment policies and abject failure to address glaring issues that have angered fans for the best part of a decade.
That is why fan protests this time around have more vigour and momentum than ever before.
Owners to blame for West Ham mess but Potter getting off too lightly
Setting that to one side, though, Graham Potter has been getting off far too lightly for overseeing what can only be described as a debacle that has accelerated West Ham’s demise.
Troy Deeney said it best recently when he stated that Potter was never the right fit for a club like West Ham.
Hammers fans thought it was bad under Julen Lopetegui.
But Potter made things even worse with a series of woeful decisions that has West Ham staring at the very real prospect of relegation.
Nuno Espirito Santo has inherited a watered down squad who have been used to losing and facing no real consequences for it.
Hammers fans have been hugely impressed by their new boss in his first few weeks in the job.
It says everything that fans are just glad to see their team actually competing and showing a bit of passion, fight and aggression.
What has become perfectly clear, though, is that Nuno really does have a huge job on his hands.
Yes the owners take centre stage in terms of the blame game – justifiably so.
But looking at West Ham’s squad and what has been allowed to develop means Potter must shoulder his fair share of the responsibility too.
He is hailed as one of the most talented English coaches around, yet there was zero improvement in West Ham’s style of play and tactical approach during his nine months in post.
Potter had been out of work for nearly two years before taking the Hammers job. It showed.
Football is evolving at a rapid rate. And in that time out of the game, Potter’s methods aged badly.
His football was as dull as his interviews and press conferences.
Potter must hang head in shame about what Nuno has inherited
The lack of passion and aggression from his players reflected what fans saw on the touchline from their mild-mannered manager.
These are all things the manager has control over.
Yes the owners put Potter in place but these are the fundamentals of any coach worth his salt.
Potter publicly confirmed he did not feel West Ham needed to go out and spend money on a new striker.
He did the same thing at Brighton, where fans got together to bring huge arrow signs to matches which they held up behind the goal as the Seagulls went a record time without scoring.
Yet he insisted on spending a club record £15.5m for a goalkeeper on Mads Hermansen, who looks like being one of the most disastrous signings in modern Hammers history.
Potter declared he would bring through Academy talent as a priority.
But he ditched Ollie Scarles the moment he started struggling and he started Freddie Potts all pre-season only to snub him when the real stuff started.
Potter continued to ignore Potts despite West Ham’s woeful start to the new campaign.
West Ham have looked visibly less fit than many of their rivals and like a team so bereft of leadership it is frightening.
Again that is on the manager.
While most were in agreement that the age of the squad needed to be drastically reduced, Potter’s handling of the situation was nothing short of negligible.
The 50-year-old allowed over 30 years of West Ham experience to walk out of the door at the same time as he released Aaron Cresswell, Michail Antonio, Lukasz Fabianski and Vladimir Coufal.
It is all well and good doing that, if you have a plan to bring in or promote more leaders to take their place.
Potter even had the temerity to bemoan a lack of leadership as everything started to unravel this season.
And worse still to privately question Jarrod Bowen’s leadership despite the Hammers talisman standing in front of the cameras week in, week out trying to defend Potter’s rudderless reign.
Potter will be lucky to get another Premier League job after Hammers flop
West Ham drifted from one insipid, passive Potter performance to another without repercussions, sleep-walking into a relegation battle pundits, journalists and fans have seen coming since last season.
Potter should never have been retained after just five wins in 20 matches last season.
He left this squad completely under-prepared for a Premier League campaign and failed time and again to address fundamental issues in the team.
So once again that is on the owners for failing to act when everyone else could see it was never going to work.
Nuno has inherited a complete mess, with Niclas Fullkrug’s latest injury laying bare the lack of options at his disposal for the next two-and-a-half months at least.
West Ham now face an absolutely crucial run of games against Brentford, Leeds, Newcastle and Burnley before the next international break.
Given how bad their start has been, the Hammers need at least seven or eight points from those matches.
Nuno’s start has been encouraging, so there is hope that can be achieved but there is no easy way out of this situation, West Ham just don’t have the squad to blast their way up the table.
Many of Potter’s failings were not helped by the poor decisions from those above him.
But their worst was hiring him in the first place.
Some labelled Potter a ‘PE teacher with a psychology degree’ and he did little to disprove that as he ended his time at West Ham as a viral meme.
Potter will be lucky to get another job at the top level of English football.
And as a result of his weak leadership as the worst permanent manager in the club’s 130-year history, West Ham will be lucky to stay there come what May.
