West Ham United have returned to form after an abject run of results throughout January and February but will need to fight hard if a successful end to the campaign is to be clinched.
David Moyes' side are into the Europa League quarter-finals but will face stern test in Xabi Alonso's Bayer Leverkusen, top of the German Bundesliga and undefeated all season.
But an impressive squad has been assembled in east London and the improvements made across multiple positions over the past several years have sculpted this exciting era, with Vladimir Coufal replacing Ryan Fredericks, aged 31, one of the most underrated tweaks of system.
Why West Ham let Ryan Fredericks go
West Ham signed Fredericks from Championship outfit Fulham on a free transfer back in 2018 after chalking up 144 appearances for the Cottagers, racking up 16 assists.
His first campaign in Hammers colours was marred by the inconsistency that would shape much of his time at the London Stadium.
21/22
7
3
0
0
20/21
14
6
1
1
19/20
27
25
0
3
18/19
15
12
1
0
His second season at the club, 2019/20, was the only Fredericks featured in over half of the Premier League term's fixtures, and while he impressed that year, averaging three tackles per game and winning 56% of his contested duels, as per Sofascore.
But those one-time displays of fortitude were left firmly in the past and given Coufal has surpassed expectations at right-back over the past few years, pronounced as "ridiculously consistent" and "one of the best signings the club have made in recent history" by content creator Dan Woffenden.
How much Ryan Fredericks cost West Ham
Admittedly, Fredericks was “unlucky”, as was said by The Athletic's Roshane Thomas, but football is an unforgiving results business and he can hardly go down as money well spent, even if rotten injury issues precluded his chances of sustaining high levels of performance.
Fredericks earned a healthy salary of £40k-per-week during his time at West Ham and when working out the cost of this across his four campaigns at the club, Fredericks drained the capital-based outfit some £8.5m in salary despite not costing a penny when acquired.
This is not the largest sum in the world but it does work out to around £189k per Premier League start and £2.6m per goal (he scored three times), hardly bespeaking value for money in that sense.
Released in 2022, Fredericks was snapped up by newly-promoted Bournemouth on a free transfer and he did feature sporadically throughout the campaign, starting five Premier League matches.
However, even this was interspersed with setbacks and after sustaining a calf injury last March, the Englishman has yet to return to the field, with his Cherries deal set to expire at the end of the season.
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Fredericks played a part and was unfortunate with some luckless periods in the medical room, but there's no question that the 31-year-old's departure was the right move. West Ham levelled up.
