Lewis Orford only has himself to blame as West Ham role dissipates

Lewis Orford is sliding towards West Ham United irrelevancy this season.

After making his first-team debut back in the 2024-25 season, many expected Orford to soon carve out a key West Ham role.

That's never happened for the midfielder, and even spent time out on loan in League One with Stevenage last season.

But following the Hammers' relegation to the Championship, the 20-year-old looked like one player who could really benefit from this situation.

So far in 2026-27, however, and the England youth international has started just once in the second tier this season.

But as his underlying numbers prove, Orford only has himself to hold responsible for that lack of involvement.

How poor have Lewis Orford's Championship numbers been?

It would be easy to make excuses for Orford and his struggles to make an impression in Nuno Espirito Santo's side this season.

The Hammers do have a strong midfield crop, with Tomas Soucek, Mohamadou Kante, Arne Engels and Divine Mukasa all quality players.

Ousting them from the starting lineup was always going to be tough for Orford, but he's not giving Nuno a headache either.

As a defensive midfielder, Orford's numbers in defence have to be strong in order to get in this side, but they're anything but.

Per FotMob, Orford's 3.35 duels won rank in the bottom 14.9 percentile of all Championship defensive midfielders.

Meanwhile, his 1.49 tackles, 4.09 defensive contributions and 1.12 times dribbled past per game put him in the bottom 37.6, 30.7 and 25.7 percentiles.

Orford has completed an average 86.2 per cent of his passes, plays just 1.49 line-breaking passes and creates 0.74 chances per game too.

But does West Ham's upcoming fixture list offer Orford a potential route back into the team instead?

Orford could be set to benefit from West Ham's upcoming schedule

Over the next two games, Nuno will surely have no interest in rotating his starting lineup any more than he needs to.

West Ham have back-to-back home games against two promotion rivals in Southampton and West Brom up next.

However, the Hammers' schedule does start to get kinder on paper in November, which may work in Orford's favour.

The Irons play Cardiff, Preston, Portsmouth and Stoke next month, with the Potters perhaps being the only genuine promotion contender in there.

Nuno could see this as a nice run of fixtures to rest and rotate more frequently, and if so, Orford may be granted a second chance.

If so, his numbers will have to improve dramatically, as otherwise, he again will only have himself to blame for not cementing an important role.