West Ham United are one of the Premier League's most curious teams.Despite boasting one of the most valuable squads outside of the top six and having an incredible fanbase, they never seem to go more than two seasons without a fight to avoid relegation.Last season was another example of this negative cycle with the axe falling on Manuel Pellegrini in the winter and the club narrowly avoiding the drop with a flurry of results late in the day.
West Ham's recent struggles
David Moyes was the man who the Hammers turned to for the second time in three seasons and on this occasion, the ex-Manchester United manager is being given the chance to continue in the job.
Say what you like about the Scotsman, but he's one of the most experienced pair of hands in the Premier League and there are plenty of fans hoping that they can kick on in 2020/21.
Besides, we're talking about a squad boasting Felipe Anderson, Sebastien Haller, Michail Antonio and Declan Rice, so there should really be no excuses.
West Ham 3-5 Bournemouth
However, you get the uneasy feeling that West Ham could be on course for another relegation battle after what has proven to be a difficult week at the London Stadium.
Captain Mark Noble publicly spoke out against the club on Twitter after the inexplicable decision to sell Grady Diangana to West Bromwich Albion.
And that bizarre call was made to look even worse when the Hammers suffered a humiliating defeat in their pre-season friendly with Bournemouth, who were relegated just a few weeks ago.
Awful defending goes viral
West Ham were thrashed 5-3 in their own backyard with Arnaud Danjuma, Dominic Solanke, Dan Gosling, Adam Smith and Jaidon Anthony all netting for the Championship side.
However, it's one thing to lose and it's another thing to lose without dignity and the Hammers didn't do themselves any favours with their defending for Gosling's strike.
In fact, their inability to deal with the Cherries was so abundantly clear that footage of their defending has gone viral for all the wrong reasons. Check out the comedy of errors below:
Holy moly. It's not as though the new Premier League season is a few days away or anything.
Such is the tumultuous nature of West Ham's recent history that you have to imagine the fans are numb to this sort of thing, but you can't help feeling sorry for them nonetheless.
And ok, sure, it was only a pre-season friendly, but there's still no excuses for such bewildering defending, appearing to show both a lack of effort and positional awareness.
It is, by all accounts, the sort of defending you'd expect to see from a Sunday League team that have lost their motivation after going three or four goals down.
We don't doubt for a second that Moyes will drill some more discipline into his team by the time the season arrives, but to say there's plenty of work to be done would be quite the understatement.