Nuno Accused Of Sacrificing Fulham Tie As West Ham Fans Question Cup Selection

“The manager selected a team to lose. No desire to progress in the competition and no thoughts for the fans.”

That was the brutal verdict from West Ham supporter Chris following the 3-2 Carabao Cup defeat to Fulham, and it goes straight to the heart of the biggest debate surrounding Nuno Espírito Santo’s team selection.

Chris was responding beneath Martin’s Morning After piece, where several Hammers supporters questioned whether West Ham had allowed a genuine opportunity to progress in the competition to slip away. Did Nuno effectively sacrifice the tie, or was this simply a sensible calculation with promotion and Millwall taking priority?

The Bigger Question Behind Nuno’s Selection

I’m not the biggest fan of Nuno Espírito Santo and never have been, but I don’t agree that he selected a team to lose. I genuinely believe he thought his method would win the game.

Had Nuno completely thrown the tie, I suspect he would have broken up his central defensive partnership too. Instead, he kept much of the back four intact and selected Divin Mukasa and Arne Engels, players he clearly considers important members of his squad.

If anything, swapping the goalkeeper was probably the decision I questioned most.

My feeling is that Nuno intended to stay in the game, introduce Bowen, Solomon and Castellanos later and then win it in the closing stages – possibly even on penalties.

It almost worked. As our Fulham player ratings reflected, West Ham came from behind twice and were one huge late opportunity away from potentially taking the game to penalties.

His plan didn’t fail because he wanted to lose. It failed because, ultimately, it didn’t quite come off.

Did Nuno Miss A Trick With The Academy?

Peter whu raised a different issue, writing: “You are not using the ex-academy players properly if you do not use it as a chance to play some attractive U21 style football.”

I do like that observation.

We saw against Southampton what can happen when several academy players who know each other’s games are put into the same team. They understand each other’s positioning and combinations because they’ve spent years playing together, and that familiarity was evident in the excellent 4-1 win at St Mary’s.

However, I wouldn’t say Nuno doesn’t trust youth. He’s selected a lot of West Ham youngsters since arriving at the club – probably more than most recent Hammers managers – and he clearly rates Ollie Scarles very highly.

Where I would agree with Peter is that Nuno generally appears to trust the players he has signed more. There are exceptions, but I can understand the argument that playing more of the academy boys together might actually get more from them than dropping individual youngsters into an unfamiliar senior set-up.

So Many Holes And Only One Shovel

Taffyhammer, as always, brought a smile to my face with his amusing observation: “Nuno’s conundrum – so many holes and only one shovel.”

He also pointed out that had Taty Castellanos converted the huge late chance and West Ham subsequently won on penalties, we might now be praising Nuno’s experimentation rather than questioning it.

I find myself largely agreeing with Taffy on this one.

Nuno half took the competition seriously. He clearly wanted to rotate and protect some of his attacking players ahead of Millwall, but he also left enough quality in the team and on the bench to believe he could win.

Almost every Fulham goal had an individual West Ham error attached to it and almost any other time you’d expect Taty to convert that late opportunity.

Nuno’s plan almost worked.

That doesn’t mean every selection was right, but I can’t accuse him of throwing the game. He gambled that he could rotate, remain competitive and finish the job from the bench.

This time, the gamble failed.