Marked for Max Kilman
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match6 Feb 2027
The run now stands at 9, and the questions being asked around West Ham United are no longer polite ones.
Market8 Feb 2027
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at West Ham United hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad8 Feb 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Kyle Walker-Peters and West Ham United agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Abu Kamara was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match6 Feb 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Pablo Felipe falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad8 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Tomáš Souček, and the manager let it.
Boardroom8 Feb 2027
The money that was there in the summer is not there now. Nobody upstairs calls this a change of ambition, and everybody downstairs reads it as one.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match23 Jan 2027
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around West Ham United are no longer polite ones.
Match23 Jan 2027
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at West Ham United can tell you which week it ends in.
Boardroom25 Jan 2027
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Jethro Medine has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad25 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at West Ham United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match23 Jan 2027
8 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Market25 Jan 2027
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. West Ham United will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
The afternoon belonged to Axel Disasi
A mark of 7.40, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Max Kilman gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad25 Jan 2027
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Dec 2026
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Alphonse Areola: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Match23 Dec 2026
Aston Villa ended it 1‑1. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Squad28 Dec 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at West Ham United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market28 Dec 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Pablo Felipe falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Max Kilman misses from twelve yards
It was his to settle and he did not settle it. A long walk back to the halfway line, and a considerably longer week.
Squad28 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Collins Sichenje, and the manager let it.
Match26 Dec 2026
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Bournemouth defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
Axel Disasi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Daniel Rigge is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Max Kilman gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A booking nobody needed, on a night the game was already won. West Ham United lose a player for the most avoidable reason there is.
Match10 Oct 2026
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Brighton? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Market12 Oct 2026
The Pablo Felipe story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Pablo Felipe signs something — a contract at West Ham United or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
Empoli come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and West Ham United did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at West Ham United hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Adama Traoré and West Ham United agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Axel Disasi in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at West Ham United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market3 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Market3 Aug 2026
24 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.