As ChampionshipTalk continues to look at the expected fortunes of the relegated clubs from the Championship Conor Diggin continues his reviews, this time with West Ham United.

Part 1 – Birmingham

Part 2 – Blackpool

I believe next season will be a challenging and exciting for West Ham fans; like Birmingham they have a new manager and they have brought in players with the experience and quality needed to make a real impact on the Championship.

Sam Allardyce’s appointment should fill fans with a renewed sense of hope, excitement and optimism, with him in charge they should be thinking that they can beat anyone and achieve anything.

Allardyce’s football may not be the most attractive or the most popular, yet he makes it work and he makes it successful and at the end of the day that is what matters.

He has also brought in two players who have played for him at two different clubs, the beastly Abdoulaye Faye and the inspiring Kevin Nolan, two players with the necessary qualities and a wealth of experience to help West Ham get back up.

Kevin Nolan in particular is a huge coup for West Ham seeing as he was Newcastle’s captain and top scorer last term, bagging an impressive 12 goals from the centre of midfield.

However, speculation has surrounded the entire West Ham squad all summer and they’ve lost one of their key players in Demba Ba. As well as this FWA Footballer of the Year and West Ham Player of the year Scott Parker is also likely to leave which will be a huge loss.

Hammers fans were bitterly disappointed last season at a number of players who should have performed ten times better than they did and these players will need to put last season behind them and step up or ship out.

With the ambitions of their owners Allardyce will have pressure heaped on him and promotion is likely the only satisfactory outcome.

I believe that West Ham should never have gone down last season with the squad they had, if they had shown bottle and sacked Grant in January they could have stayed up. However the future looks bright with with Allardyce in charge and I believe this season they will be serious title contenders.