West Ham United 2025/26 Season Preview
🆕 training threads 🧵 pic.twitter.com/esYmy0HAMG
— West Ham United (@WestHam) July 7, 2025
West Ham were exceptionally poor last season - Julien Lopetegui lasted just five months before being sent on his way, and his replacement Graham Potter didn’t fare much better. In truth they were fortunate to finish as high as 14th - had Manchester United and Tottenham performed marginally better, West Ham would have been hovering dangerously close to the drop zone at the end of the season.
The problems stemmed from last season’s recruitment - Niclas Fullkrug failed to have any impact up top, Crysencio Summervilla failed to bring his outstanding form from the Championship to the Premier League, and while centre back signings Jean-Clair Todibo and Mix Kilman were solid, they still shipped 62 Premier League goals, the third worst total outside the bottom three. The signing of Aaron Wan-Bissaka was the only true success - he netted twice (his first goals since 2021) and notched five assists as he played all but two league fixtures - but it is clear that West Ham’s recruitment strategy needs a rethink this summer.
There is plenty of talent throughout the West Ham squad, and in Graham Potter, the club has a very able manager who is more than capable of putting the jigsaw pieces together. The issue is that the puzzle pieces appear six-sided at the moment; if Potter can make a success of his first pre-season at the club, these pieces should start to take a more simplified shape.
Best Result: West Ham United 4-1 Ipswich Town (Antonio 1’, Kudus 43’, Bowen 49’, Paqueta 60’; Delap 6’)
Worst Result: West Ham United 0-5 Liverpool (Diaz 30’, Gakpo 40’, Salah 44’, Alexander-Arnold 54’, Jota 84’)
Jean-Clair Todibo - Loan made permanent for £34.5 Million
El Hadji Malick Diouf from Slavia Prague - £19 Million
Kyle Walker-Peters from Southampton - Free Transfer
Mohammed Kudus to Tottenham - £55 Million
🚨⚪️ BREAKING: Mohammed Kudus to Tottenham, here we go! Deal in place for £55m from West Ham.
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) July 9, 2025
Kudus only wanted #THFC and he will now sign 6 year contract at Tottenham.
Medical tests booked for Kudus in London on Thursday then all signed, as @David_Ornstein reports. pic.twitter.com/htBP3bOCg0
Patrick Kelly to Barnsley - Free Transfer
Gideon Kodua to Luton Town - Season long loan
Michale Forbes to Northampton Town - Season long loan
Kurt Zouma - Released
Danny Ings - Released
Vladimir Coufal - Released
Lukasz Fabianski - Released
Aaron Cresswell - Released
Michail Antonio - Released
Evan Ferguson to Brighton - End of Loan
Carlos Soler to PSG - End of Loan
Goalkeepers: Alphonse Areola, Wes Foderingham.
Defenders: Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Malick Diouf, Jean-Clair Todibo, Nayef Aguerd, Konstantinos Mavropanos, Max Kilman, Kaelen Casey, Emerson, Kyle Walker-Peters.
Midfielders: James Ward-Prowse, Tomas Soucek, Edson Alvarez, Guido Rodriguez, Lucas Paqueta, Mohamadou Kante, Luis Guilherme, Andy Irving, Lewis Orford.
Attackers: Maxwel Cornet, Jarrod Bowen, Crysencio Summerville, Niclas Fullkrug, George Earthy, Callum Marshall.
West Ham 2025/26 Home Kit pic.twitter.com/DwPd7MmtF1
— West Ham Football (@westhamfootball) July 3, 2025
The 2025/26 away kit, modelled by Crysencio Summerville.
— From The Anvil - West Ham United ⚒ (@FromTheAnvilWHU) July 17, 2025
Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/vYvW1XS3Yr
OFFICIAL | West Ham have released their third kit for the 25/26 season 👕
— West Ham Really (@TheWestHamNews1) July 30, 2025
SOURCE | @WestHam pic.twitter.com/Jtvv3gCElu
Sunderland vs West Ham United | Stadium of Light, Sunderland | Saturday, August 16th, 15:00
As of the time of writing, West Ham’s opening fixture of the season is not scheduled to be shown on Sky Sports or TNT Sports. However, other broadcasters will be screening the match, such as Supersport.
Sunderland vs West Ham United - Saturday, August 16th.
West Ham United vs Chelsea - Friday, August 22nd.
Nottingham Forest vs West Ham United - Sunday, August 31st.
West Ham United vs Tottenham Hotspur - Saturday, September 13th.
West Ham United vs Crystal Palace - Saturday, September 20th.
One of three London derbies in their first five games, West Ham have clocked some excellent results against the American backed Blues’ ensuring that this season's meetings will have no shortage of needle.
West Ham United vs Chelsea - Friday, August 22nd.
Chelsea vs West Ham United - TBC.
Recent Meetings:
"It seems that wherever you go in the world, there are West Ham fans. Whenever you're on holiday, you bump into West Ham fans, there's always somebody in the street giving the ‘Irons’ and stuff, so we can be proud of that, for sure."
— Central (@WestHam_Central) July 23, 2025
– Graham Potter pic.twitter.com/1Hk0rKls4E
It is the first time since 2022 that Graham Potter has found himself in charge of a club. After his short but disastrous spell at Chelsea, the highly rated English coach saw his stocks plummet, and as a result, he steered clear of management for the best part of two years. This was partially a move he made in order to get away from all the criticism and pressure he had come under in his last months at Chelsea, but it may also have been in hope that people would forget about his failings when he eventually came back.
His start at West Ham was anything but spectacular - his first league game saw the Hammers edge to a 3-2 victory over Fulham, but he would have to wait another five games before his next three point haul. A winless streak of eight games from early March to early May would not have helped his confidence, but he coached two wins in the last three games of the season to ensure the club went out on something of a high. While their safety was never in danger, thanks to the dire form of the three promoted sides, Potter will know that things could become much less comfortable if Sunderland, Burnley and Leeds United show any ounce of Premier League know-how.
Every English football fan knows what Potter is capable of - his Brighton side of 2021/22 were arguably one of the most talented non-top six sides of the last decade or so, studded with fantastic players and built upon solid team cohesion. With Potter in charge at West Ham, there is no doubt that their recruitment strategy will change tack, and if they can land the player’s touted by their coach, they could find themselves back in the upper mid-table mix.
Jarrod Bowen
How Jarrod Bowen is still at West Ham, many of us will never know. With 65 goals and 36 assists in his last four seasons in East London, the Englishman appears the perfect player to provide an alternative attacking option at the likes of Arsenal or Manchester City, and yet he finds himself sitting stubbornly in the bottom half of the table in claret and blue.
No player ended the season in better form than Jarrod Bowen 🔥
— Fantasy Premier League (@OfficialFPL) May 27, 2025
The only side he failed to return against in the last 8 Gameweeks were the league champions 🙌#FPL pic.twitter.com/WsKCLSK6YL
Bowen has been a revelation at West Ham since his move from Hull City five and a half years ago - he is never afraid to take on his man, and he has excellent positional awareness - but it is his finishing that marks him out as one of the Premier Leagues top forwards. Just one glance at his catalogue of West Ham goals tells you all you need to know: this man knows how to find the net, and very few things will get in his way while he is in search of it. 13 goals and eight assists in the Premier League alone only saw his value spike, and if any side wants to acquire his services now, they will need to pay upwards of £50 Million.
Having now broken into the England set-up, being used regularly as an impact substitute under both Gareth Southgate and now under Thomas Tuchel, the only thing missing from Bowen’s CV is a decent haul of trophies, something which his talent richly deserves. Sure, he has won the Conference League while at West Ham, but that looks to be as high as they will go in his time there - his eyes must surely now be flickering elsewhere.
This section will be completed at the start of August, when the team has started to take a more accurate shape following various incomings and outgoings.
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