Before David Moyes' second managerial appointment at West Ham United, the club was struggling to cement a position of power in the Premier League, too often falling flat after promising form.
Since achieving instantaneous promotion in 2012 after relegation from the top flight, the Hammers recorded three top-half finishes until Moyes replaced Manuel Pellegrini in December 2019 with the squad in disarray, headed for a bitter reunion with the second tier.
He navigated away from danger and rekindled the squad's vigour – several members remained on the books from the fantastic feats of the 2015/16 season under Slaven Bilic, where a seventh-placed finish resulted in a Europa Leauge campaign, though that was ignominiously ended in the play-off round against Romanian side Astra Giurgiu the following season.
That failure to reach the first round proper came with the veritable force of a hammer laced in barbed wire; it was sickening. Over. The chance for European glory. Gone. It wouldn't soon come again… surely.
Moyes took the helm and the rest is history, with West Ham now enjoying their third successive European campaign and boasting last season's Europa Conference League title.
He deserves all the plaudits for crafting an industrious squad full of players fighting for the badge. Such required ruthlessness, and after securing survival in 2019/20, he got rid of a once sensational attacking star in Felipe Anderson.
How much did West Ham sign Felipe Anderson for?
The fleet-footed winger was signed for West Ham from Serie A side Lazio for a club-record £36m fee in July 2018, with the club's director of football Mario Husillos claiming that they had "signed one of the most exciting talents in European football."
It was a staggering fee that eclipsed the £22m record paid for centre-back Issa Diop earlier that summer, but the signs were indeed promising for one of Europe's most exciting, creative rising stars.
Indeed, the Brazilian had posted eight goals and nine assists across an injury-hit year with Lazio the season before, dazzling with his agile, deft movements and ingenuity on the ball.
Proclaiming his game to centre around "dribbling" and saying "I'm fast and I'm going to use my intelligence" through an interpreter upon signing for the Irons, Anderson arrived with a weight of expectation, the premier addition from an expensive, ambitious summer under Pellegrini's leadership.
Initially, it worked out and then some, but after alighting the Premier League in a coruscating glow across his maiden year, he quickly, poignantly, fell by the wayside.
What was said about Felipe Anderson when he joined West Ham?
West Ham had just finished 13th. It was a season that had been salvaged somewhat by Moyes, who did not continue his journey in east London having spent six months at the helm across the 2017/18 campaign.
Pellegrini implemented his style and Anderson was the lynchpin, scoring ten goals and supplying five assists from 40 appearances across all competitions as West Ham recorded a tenth-placed finish in the top-flight and looked to be building something memorable.
Heralded as "outstanding" by the late Hammers chairman David Gold and dubbed a "terrific talent" by former teammate Robert Snodgrass, the wideman lived up to the hype for that wonderful individual season, also averaging 1.8 key passes and 2.1 dribbles per match in the Premier League and completing 76% of his passes from his offensive role, as per WhoScored.
So profound was his impact that peer Aaron Cresswell dubbed him the second coming of revered former West Ham phenom Dimitri Payet, saying: " I can see him becoming a fans’ favourite like Dimitri [Payet]. He’s a similar type of player, coming off the left, creating things and scoring goals. He is our top scorer now, he has been fantastic for us.”
Payet was signed for a small fee of just £10m in 2015, and swiftly asserted himself as one of the most destructive playmakers in the Premier League, heralded as "one of the most important players in Europe" by manager and compatriot Zinedine Zidane.
A genius creative force, Payet arrived on English shores with a level of innovation that had scarcely been seen at West Ham before, and plundered 12 goals and 15 assists across all competitions during his first term.
Payet and Anderson do share several similarities from their time in east London, and not all pleasing; both left in somewhat acrimonious circumstances and failed to live up to the same blistering heights that were achieved on their first years in the Premier League.
Payet was said to 'want to leave' by Bilic in January 2017, homesick and discontented with life in London, and he exited the club, returning to Marseille, 18 months after joining for £25m.
Anderson was a brilliant player too, but he lost his way and headed back for former pastures, leaving on loan before making the permanent move away soon after.
What went wrong for Felipe Anderson?
It's ironic that in similar circumstances, Anderson would re-join Lazio in July 2021, three years after joining and having spent the 2020/21 campaign out on loan with Portuguese outfit Porto, where he suffered a most inauspicious spell and earned just one assist from ten measly outings.
It was a decision made by Moyes, one of his first of the 2020 summer transfer window, after he flattered to deceive across his second year in England, scoring just once and providing six assists across all competitions – to emphasise how poor this return was, Diop, who he swiped the record signing tag from upon signing, bagged three goals in the Premier League that year.
The degradation of his former flair was startling, with Ben Foster claiming that he could "not cut it" after initially performing so admirably.
Considering that he earned around £18m in wages across his three campaigns on West Ham's books, that solitary season of promise was not enough to live up to such staggering sums of money (which may not all have been paid by the Irons given that he spent a year out on loan).
While Hammers fans will fondly remember the impact Anderson made at the club across his first season, he ran out of gas far too soon and did indeed fall by the wayside.
Now 30-years-old and thriving once more in Serie A, there will be a sense that the quality at his feet could have been harnessed to greater effect.
Since it didn't work out, that layer of regret sits like mist on the player's Premier League career; West Ham are flying at present and it's all worked out under Moyes, but just imagine if Anderson had maintained his purple patch and cemented a spot on the left wing to this day.
