West Ham finally have the players, and manager, to match their ambitions

After years of chaos and disorder, West Ham have finally found some composure in the form of the Chilean, Manuel Pellegrini.

These are exciting times in east London. Finally.

Increasingly frustrated by their incompetent owners, overseers of arguably the most poorly executed stadium migration in the history of the sport, West Ham fans might at last get a glimpse of the beautiful soccer they’ve been craving in 2018-19.

For years now, Messrs. Gold and Sullivan have yapped on about West Ham challenging for Europe. Warding off Tottenham for the rights to the London Stadium was supposed to be a necessary step in that direction. But while it holds almost 20,000 more people than Upton Park, something was lost.

Slaven Bilic, given the unenviable task of managing the team through the stadium transition, failed to build on a promising first season, and was sacked last November, with David Moyes called in to steady the ship, which he did, to be fair, but not before a brief flirtation with the relegation zone that culminated in widespread fan protests and multiple pitch invasions during a 3-0 loss to Burnley on March 10.

The fans, it seemed, had reached their limit with Gold and Sullivan, who had been toying with their expectations for several seasons, promising the arrival of big-name players only to bring in less-known, much worse players instead.

This summer, however, has been different. And how.

With the world’s attention firmly fixed on the World Cup in Russia, West Ham were busy in the transfer market, bringing in Jack Wilshere (a man with a point to prove), Lukasz Fabianski, Issa Diop, Fabian Balbuena, Ryan Fredericks and, most intriguingly, Andriy Yarmolenko and Felipe Anderson (for a club-record fee).

On paper, things look peachy. However, it’s never easy getting so many new players to work well together off the bat. This is where West Ham’s biggest summer signing comes into play: Manuel Pellegrini.

It was a surprise to see the Premier League-winning manager even linked with West Ham, but the owners had been working behind the scenes for a long time to bring him in. That in itself qualifies as progress for a club who have seemed completely lacking in any sort of coherent strategy for so long, and Pellegrini’s name has surely helped them attract the players they have.

He led Real Madrid to a record La Liga points total in 2009-10, before winning the title with City, but it’s his work with smaller clubs that should really excite West Ham fans. He took over mediocre Villarreal and Malaga sides and made them competitive in Europe, and was a missed Juan Roman Riquelme penalty away from the Champions League final with Villarreal.

He favors an attractive, attacking style of play and is a calm, dignified presence on the touchline. He’ll shake things up in training and instill a level of energy and discipline that has been lacking for years. This is already a huge departure from the chaos and unpredictability of last season.

The Chilean signed a three-year contract with the Hammers, and will need time to shape the team, and the club, in his image. The first goal should simply be improvement on last seasons’s 13th-place finish, but European qualification is the true ambition for West Ham. This season will provide a glimpse into whether that’s actually possible.