You have to go back more than a decade, though, to find the last Championship team who won the league with fewer than 90 points. That was Malky Mackay’s Cardiff City, who finished on 87 in 2012/13.

Tony Mowbray’s West Brom in 2007/08 are the last time to win the league with fewer than 85. And we mention that because West Ham, as things stand, are currently on track to finish 2026/27 with only 84.

West Ham United are on track to finish with 84 Championship points

Averaging 1.8 points per game, West Ham are currently trailing well behind their soft target of 92. They have won only six of their first 12 matches. That West Bromwich Albion outfit from two decades ago won the league with a 50 per cent win rate and 81 points, but it is a very different game these days.

The Championship still has a reputation for being a ‘topsy turvy’ competition where ‘anyone can beat anyone’.

And that is true to an extent – West Ham were stunned at home by Charlton in August and who saw Swansea being drubbed 5-0 by QPR? – but these days 92 points is at the low end of the tally for title-winning teams. As it stands, the Hammers won’t even get near that.

“We have looked at it as a club in detail and 92 points is enough nine years out of 10 and sometimes less,” a leading source at the London Stadium told Hammers News a month ago, shortly after a six-goal thrashing of Wrexham had confidence levels rising at a club on a four-game winning run.

“The year we were third with 86 points under Big Sam [2011/12], the top two were 88 and 89 points. In 2008/9, second was 83 points and Wolves won the league with 90 points.”

Football has moved on a lot since then. Championship-winning teams usually need 95-plus these days. West Ham’s prospective target of 92 may have felt a little unambitious in September, but it now looks beyond Nuno’s outfit in current form.