For better or worse, West Ham’s head coach Nuno Espírito Santo appears to have a stubborn streak within him. The whole dèbcle at Nottingham Forest began over a row over the club signing “managers pick” Adama Traore, with Sporting Director Edu being opposed to the deal – which ended up with Nuno exiting and joining West Ham a few weeks later.

Nuno’s determination to shake up the goal keeping options at West Ham seems to show similar stubbornness: Perhaps because of his own history as a ‘keeper’, he is ultra-focussed on bringing in a replacement for Mads Hermansen.

But in the last few days of the transfer window it seems he is hell bent on doing a deal with Spurs- which one site has called a ‘catastrophic transfer’ – for the Spurs!

teamtalk.com confirm many Spurs’ fans opinion at letting their young prospect Antonin Kinsky head straight to a rival with their article:

“Tottenham and West Ham ‘close to finalising’ ‘catastrophic’ transfer”.

Irrespective of whether fallen-from-grace Hermansen heads the other way:

“West Ham are close to finalising the signing of Antonín Kinsky on loan with a non-mandatory purchase option.”

Which draws huge rebuke from Spurs fan sites – amongst them HotspurHQ who claim:

“‘The move is not official yet, but there is more than enough smoke here for Tottenham fans to be very worried that their beloved club is about to make yet another massive transfer misstep. Kinsky could be gone forever and haunt Tottenham badly in the future at West Ham.’

Hermansen or Kinsky: Neither are likely to get into the starting XI ahead of Areola unless he’s a victim of an injury. In the meantime surely Hammers fans will be losing patience with their club fiddling around the edges instead of bringing in better defenders who will protect any of their myriad choices of goal keeper far better than the Kilman – Mavropanos-Todibo options currently on offer.

Whilst the Mavropanos-Todibo pairing is looking more solid, every West Ham fan will be aware of the spectre of the shaky Kilman being the only option should one of the ‘starting’ duo of defenders pull up injured. And that, frankly, is a lot more worrying than starting Mads Hermansen once again.