West Ham’s nightmare start to the 2025/26 season just keeps getting darker.
Sunderland put three past them on opening day, Chelsea ran riot with five in Stratford the following week, and now Wolves have dumped them out of the EFL Cup with a 3-2 win, courtesy of a Jørgen Strand Larsen double.
Three defeats, 11 goals conceded, and a fanbase already at boiling point — it’s not a pretty picture.
Against Wolves it was Alphonse Areola in goal, but for those other two horror shows, it’s been £20m summer recruit Mads Hermansen between the sticks. And after shipping eight in two matches, with Gary Lineker (while admitting he likes the Dane) even branding his displays “awful,” West Ham are already scrambling for a solution.
And as fate would have it, that solution might just be the keeper they snubbed earlier this summer.
West Ham Revive John Victor Move
According to a fresh report from TalkSPORT, West Ham have reignited their pursuit of Botafogo goalkeeper John Victor, working on a loan deal with an option to buy at the end of the season.
The 29-year-old was actually on the verge of joining the Hammers earlier this month in a £10m deal, before Graham Potter pivoted instead to Hermansen — a gamble that’s already backfired spectacularly.
Victor, meanwhile, has been building his reputation both domestically and abroad. At the 2025 Club World Cup, he stole the headlines with a match-winning performance against Paris Saint-Germain, and back home in Brazil, he was a cornerstone of Botafogo’s remarkable treble in 2024 — lifting the Série A, Copa Libertadores, and Taça Rio.
Simply put: he’s a winner. And compared to a keeper who just got relegated from the Premier League, he already looks like the upgrade West Ham so desperately need.
If Potter can pull this one off, it might just stop the bleeding — at least for now.
