WEST HAM icon Tony Cottee understands why the club’s stars would want out.
Lucas Paqueta is eyeing a January exit, while Jarrod Bowen will be a target for top clubs.
Cottee fears the Hammers are heading for relegation from the Premier League following “a catalogue of disasters”.
He told SunSport: “The players I feel sorry for most are Jarrod Bowen and Lucas Paqueta.
“I read the Paqueta story about him reportedly wanting out in January. I honestly don’t blame him.
“My heart bleeds for Bowen, a real legend at West Ham for what he has achieved.
“They have been let down by terrible recruitment.”
Cottee fears his old club are heading for the Championship — just over two years after Conference League glory.
The former England frontman is fifth in Hammers’ list of all-time scorers with 146 goals in two spells between 1982-88 and 1994-96.
And he is pinning hopes on new boss Nuno Espirito Santo to turn things round, starting at home to Newcastle on Sunday.
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But the 60-year-old is having deja vu nightmares about the 2010-11 season when the Hammers were last relegated from the top flight.
Cottee said: “It has been a catalogue of disasters since Prague and now, sadly, my old team are one of the favourites for relegation.
“I appreciate we are less than a quarter of the way through the season but, so far, the first nine games have all the hallmarks of 2011 when Avram Grant took the club down.
“We had only picked up one win in our opening nine games in that campaign, conceded 17 goals and ended up bottom of the league eight months later.
“Worryingly, the team has an even worse record than that so far this season.”
Cottee is still raging at how the club allowed former manager David Moyes to leave at the end of the 2023-24 campaign.
He added: “I am extremely bitter about the way David was treated.
“After John Lyall and Ron Greenwood, he was the third most successful manager in the club’s history.
“He stabilised West Ham, took the club into Europe in three of his four years in his second spell in charge and helped win the club its first major trophy in more than 40 years.
“What else did the hierarchy and a minority section of supporters want?
“And yet there was criticism for the way the team played — and, for some crazy reason, the management didn’t renew his contract.
“In David they had a manager who would have to rank among the top five British managers in Premier League history.
“Surely if they were going to replace David, it would have to be for an amazing top- quality replacement? But they failed miserably to make the right choice.”
Julen Lopetegui was the first man at the helm after Moyes’ departure in May 2024 but lasted just 22 matches, with his successor Graham Potter also getting the boot after just eight months following the miserable start to this season.
Cottee added: “Now the club has a third manager in 18 months in Nuno.
“He plays exactly the same counter-attacking team as Moyes, so the club have gone full circle and in the interim period have sunk to new depths.
“The players I feel sorry for most are Jarrod Bowen and Lucas Paqueta, two of only four survivors from the European final XI success just over two years ago.
“I read the Paqueta story about him reportedly wanting out in January. I honestly don’t blame him.
“Both players have watched that final team be completely dismantled and had to try to carry the side.
“Paqueta is a wonderfully gifted footballer but we can all see he is a player much better aligned to play in a successful side than one scrapping relegation. He has the quality to turn a game.
“My heart bleeds for Bowen, a real legend at West Ham for what he has achieved. He is a true adopted East End hero.
“In my opinion they have been let down by terrible recruitment.
“I am just hoping Nuno can go back to basics to get the club out of this hole.
“But in the last couple of games we have had full-backs playing in different positions, Tomas Soucek as a holding midfielder and no striker. There are so many worrying signs.”
Cottee also raised the question of the lack of emergence of the West Ham kids — a glittering young side who came from behind to thrash Arsenal 5-1 in the FA Youth Cup final in 2023 at the Emirates.
He added: “Over the last two years Arsenal have nurtured Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri from that final side and they are now integral members of their squad.
“Yet only Ollie Scarles has gone on to make any starts in the Premier League from that victorious West Ham team.
“It’s really sad because West Ham have produced some of the most outstanding young talents over the last 30 years.”
