2009/10 to 2017/18

West Ham United spent eight of the nine seasons from 2009/10 to 2017/18 in the Premier League and one in the Championship. Their best finish was 7th, in 2015/16. They didn’t win a major trophy. Over those nine summers they paid £176.2m in transfer fees and took in £42.9m, a net spend of £133.3m. In 115.football they get City’s £900m instead.

West Ham's decade began with a fall. Seventeenth in 2009/10 was a warning, and 2010/11 ended bottom with 33 points. They bounced straight back, third in the Championship and promoted through the play-offs in 2011/12, and stayed up for the rest of the period.

The best of it came in 2015/16, the last season at the Boleyn Ground: seventh place and 62 points, with Dimitri Payet, signed from Marseille for around £10.7m, the star of the show. The move to the London Stadium followed, along with bigger signings in André Ayew, Marko Arnautović and Javier Hernández, but not better finishes: 11th, then 13th.

Scott Parker left for Tottenham in 2011, after the relegation. On 115.football, with £900m from summer 2009, he never has to. The aim is to skip the drop entirely and make 2015/16 a starting point instead of a peak.