The longest season in West Ham United’s 125-year history came to an end on Sunday, some 391 days after the players returned for pre-season training on 1 July 2019.
With the Hammers kicking off their 2019/20 Premier League campaign on Saturday 10 August last year, the competitive season lasted a record 351 days.
Of course, 104 of those days were lost during the unprecedented break in play caused by COVID-19, which brought about the suspension of West Ham’s season in between the away fixture at Arsenal on Saturday 7 March and the visit of Wolverhampton Wanderers to London Stadium on Saturday 20 June.
On either side of that suspension, West Ham played 48 first-team matches in total – six pre-season fixtures, 38 Premier League games and two ties each in the FA Cup and EFL Cup. Of those 42 competitive matches, 12 ended in victory, nine in draws and 21 in defeat.
The Hammers scored 53 goals in all competitions but conceded 67, and kept just nine clean sheets.
Individually, Hammer of the Year Declan Rice led the way in appearances (39), starts (39) and minutes played (3,510) and was also the Club’s only Premier League ever-present.
Rice also led the way in the Premier League in a number of individual categories, including tackles, interceptions and passes made, while it was Issa Diop who made more clearances than any other Hammer.
Sebastien Haller won more aerial challenges than any other Premier League player, with his 218 ranking him ahead of Sheffield United’s Oli McBurnie (200), Burnley’s James Tarkowski and Watford’s Troy Deeney (both 198).
Noble, of course, became the tenth West Ham player to reach the landmark of 500 first-team appearances when he led the Irons to a vital 3-1 Premier League victory over Watford at London Stadium on Friday 17 July.
Overall, 30 different players appeared over the course of the campaign, including four goalkeepers, with Conor Coventry appearing for just eight minutes as a substitute in the EFL Cup second-round win at Newport County last August.
Coventry was one of five Academy of Football graduates to feature, with captain Noble, Rice, Ben Johnson and Jeremy Ngakia being the other four. Nathan Holland, who has been nominated for Premier League 2 Player of the Season, joined the Hammers from Everton at the age of 18.
Despite making just 20 starts and 26 appearances, Michail Antonio finished the season as West Ham’s leading scorer with ten goals, all of them scored in the Premier League – the first time he hit double figures in a single campaign in a Claret and Blue shirt.
Antonio finished ahead of Sebastien Haller (seven), Andriy Yarmolenko and Robert Snodgrass (both five) in the goalscoring charts, while 17 different players found the net over the course of the season.
Of them, six scored their first goals for the Club – Haller, Fornals, Jack Wilshere, Pablo Zabaleta, Jarrod Bowen and Tomas Soucek.
For the record, the 2020/21 Premier League season – West Ham’s 25th overall and ninth in succession – kicks-off 48 days after the 2019/20 campaign ended, on Saturday 12 September!
