Nuno Espírito Santo arrived at West Ham last season following the dismissal of Graham Potter, billed as a manager who would bring structure, discipline and clarity after one and half seasons of drift. Results didn’t instantly improve, yet there was a marked improvement following the appointment of Paco Jemez as first team coach. Sadly, the damage was irreparable and the club imploded and were relegated.
As the new season begins in the Championship, the picture around him is becoming harder to ignore, his job is far from secure, and the warning signs aren’t subtle. Tinkering and playing players out of position constantly is now wearing thin. For example against Charlton, new signing Joel Piroe, who is a penalty box goalscorer, played behind Taty Castellanos.
There was no creativity and no pace in the squad.
More worrying have been reports circulating last season that multiple players believe training sessions and tactical preparation had actually been better under Potter. This trend it is believed has continued into the new season.
Nuno’s training sessions were criticised last season
A report by the Sun in May of this year also claimed that Nuno often failed speaking to players during half time and after matches altogether. One explosive row came during our 3-0 Wolves loss last season when first team coach, Mark Robson attempted to tear into the players at half time and Nuno interrupted him and ordered him to sit down before a heated argument broke out in front of the squad.
Players have fallen out with the Portuguese Head Coach, including former striker Callum Wilson, who implied that Nuno was the reason why he wasn’t staying for the Championship season.
Another glaring issue is that Nuno has always preferred tight squads, clearly defined roles and a group small enough to control. He said it himself recently, he “rebalanced” West Ham’s squad, off‑loading players and keeping a lean group he felt could execute his game model more effectively. Yet I would argue many fans have seen enough, he doesn’t have an answer, we are unbalanced.
As one fan put it to me after the game on Saturday “I saw a team today that just didn’t want to play for him, the lack of energy is palpable. He’s negative, and not a proper coach. He needs to go.”
This may seem extreme after two games, yet Nuno is accountable for last season, and he’s taken off from where he left off. West Ham are in the Championship. 44 league games remaining, cup fixtures stacked on top, and two matches a week for long stretches. A small squad doesn’t just risk fatigue it guarantees it.
If you zoom out, the patterns are familiar painfully so. At Spurs, Nuno’s conservative style didn’t quite click with the club or the fanbase. Performances deteriorated sharply. The team lacked attacking guile and defensive discipline. Players struggled with his tactics, and the dressing room clearly lost belief. The board acted quickly, sacking him after a heavy defeat to Manchester United.
Now look at West Ham.
The football is cautious. The squad is adjusting awkwardly. There’s an explosive mutiny, the mood is unmistakable, a disconnect is forming, players want to go, and are leaving in their droves. Nuno’s weaknesses tend to surface fast when results wobble. His football can become predictable. His rigidity can frustrate squads who want more freedom. His smaller squads can’t absorb injuries or dips in form. In the Championship, those weaknesses will be magnified.
Daniel Kretinsky backed Nuno, whereas another board member was keen to part ways. There will be comparisons to Glenn Roeder, who started with a win at Preston in the second tier, a goalless home draw against Sheffield United and then was sacked after losing to Rotherham in August 2003.
Despite the board turmoil which is set to be decided by late September- early October, they also know the stakes, promotion is non‑negotiable. And right now, the signs aren’t pointing upward.
It doesn’t take a crisis to make a job insecure, just a pattern. And the pattern around Nuno is becoming hard to ignore.
Nuno can still turn this around yet the club must decide whether his philosophy can survive the brutality of this league or whether they are watching the early stages of a familiar story.
Well said Jimbo !!
Totally agree
Staveley and Eddie Howe for me too
Nuno did well at Wolves, and for a while at Forest, I’ll give you that. But unfortunately. The board ignored his apparent inability to motivate good players, incomprehensible substitutions, poor man management, and most surprisingly his total lack of tactical awareness.
Decided not to bite the bullet, as they should have. But chose instead to ignore what was obvious to most of us last season, and use his CV as our plan for the future. While conspicuously failing to recognise the weird and wonderful things that can happen in the cut-throat world of modern football. Where proven managers have moved clubs, but were unable to repeat the trick. Proving beyond doubt, that success in a managerial career isn’t guaranteed. But more often than not, happening not by talent alone. More a combination of being in the right place at the right time, the accidental placing of disgruntled players they may have inherited and allowing them to find their happy place. But most of all, by sheer plain dumb luck. I can’t say I blame them altogether for this decision. Because boards of directors who have made the same mistake are too numerous to mention. But there is still time for our lot to wake up, and make up for their mistake before it’s too late.
But it’s even worse than that!
There not ONE player worthy of playing in the premier league!! Not one decent offer came in for Bowen! What’s that tell you!!!
There were many of us that were prepared to give Nuno the benefit of the doubt last season but as he had more than enough games to get us safe. As others have said we only played anything resembling watchable football when Paco arrived. So Kretinsky did the worse thing possible by leaving him in place. The man seems one of the most unispirational managers I have ever seen.mHenis a demotivating force and has lost the changing room.
I would go for McKenna or Bellamy or even give Paco a go. Please no Scott Parker or Gareth Southgate or Thomas Frank
I’ve already said before the season started to my mate’s that nuno nothing will be gone in 6 games
Agree with the calls for Paco, he is an attacking coach and very communicative, best choice would be Eddie Howe or third choice see if we can prise Martin O Neill away from Celtic anyone that tries to play football and has their teams pressing would be good.
The players lack intensity and have done all of the time under Nuno which am sure is in part down to his dour personality.
Get a coach that can lift the mood or players that can like Antonio and Rice type characters that lift the place.
Bowen is great but he doesn’t have that quality and needs supporting characters.
Mr Eddie Howe or Mr Craig Bellamy please, either one will do
Available managers to choose from, Kieran Mckenna, Eddie Howe, Gareth Southgate Steven Gerrard then the likes of Arne Slot, Roberto Martinez, Julien Narglesmann. Which of these would come down to the championship with WHU, just one posiiblilty and thats Mckenna.
Well said, Matt. For myself and, quite clearly many others, Nuno is not going to get any better as our manager. He has shown so many times that he really is Nu No Clue and has Nu No Idea what he’s doing. When he took the job last September I really thought we had a big upgrade on JLo and Potter. He had done so well with Wolves. But it quickly became clear that he isn’t so good without a team full of Portugal stars. Now I am worried that he is causing great damage to our club with his poor man management, poor team formations, poor tactical substitutions and extremely poor game management. In short, as a manager he is not fit for purpose. I pray that whoever is supposed to be running the club wakes up and sees sense. We are in a very dangerous situation where those players who have not actually left the club are nevertheless not playing for this manager. He has lost the plot. For God’s sake, we must end his tenure now and try and get Eddie Howe. Come on you Irons!
Nuno needs to go but West Ham’s boardroom is as much of a shambles as the team. Who is capable of making the correct decision? Not Kretinsky – he wanted Nuno to stay. Sorry to have to say this but I think WHU are doomed under DK and Nuno.
I think it was fair enough to give Nuno the chance to bounce back. Last year it was the same with Potter who also should have gone after a couple of games as it clearly hadn’t worked. As you say though, there is a complete leadership vacuum top to bottom.
This season is exactly the same as the last; & is pointing (perhaps too early to say it) towards another relegation. Whatever one’s opinions about the manager & coaching staff, you have to admit the OBVIOUS: so far (early days maybe) West Ham isn’t working – the same as last season. Promotion is SO important to the club & to us all that something has to change. The players must play to their strengths, with purpose & determination. They are not doing that at present. I will avoid any comment as to whose fault that may be, but it HAS to change. It is rather obvious that the club’s progress under the “Nuno regime” is actually regress ! An essential first step MUST be to sign a defence (yes, a whole new one – if you can call the present one a “defence”
Someone HAS to take responsibility for this. I will leave it to others to actually say what I think; but I am already hearing a lot of other comments which echo my own opinion !
Its early in the season. Only second game with new players. Nuno got Wolves out the Championship with record points. There aren’t too many proven managers with Premiership and Championship experience. I agree yesterday and Burnley was utterly disappointing but we cant sack a manager after three games.
Couldn’t agree more. Even with new players and others departed, the pattern of play is exactly as it was last season and we all know where that left us.
The habits of playing players out of position and trying to defend a lead are hallmarks of Nunos style and if there is no improvement over the next few games, his days are numbered surely.
Nuno deserves being replaced as Manager, not for 2 matches this season, but what he did last season
Last Autumn when Numo first came to the club there was a buzz, we arrived for matches looking forward to seeing this or that player in the team, but team sheet after sheet arrived with players out of position….the Chatlton game proved Nuno hasn’t learnt.
Then match after match we would go into the lead with players buzzing, only to be demoralised with defensive protect the lead tactics, try it once ok, twice maybe, but by that time you know it isn’t a winner,so go to plan B….. the Burnley game proved there’s no plan B and Nuno hasn’t learnt
The defensive team sent out against Newcastle was the limit. Newcastle were having a very poor run of games, far worse than ourselves and it was a game we needed 3 points from
As for falling out with and not managing players…. that actually could be the Silver lining in sacking Nuno, it would be less expensive if the next manager could get Tobido playing. I accept that might not be possible but the way the guy tried to defend his teammate against Chelsea, yes reckless and deserved sending off, but it did show where the guy’s heart was back then
Sack Nuno before it’s too late
Ps re DK or Staveley, they both have development plans and wont care how West Ham are doing, in fact it will probably help their cause if we end up in League 1
Of Nuno is the problem get rid the players are certainly not playing and for sure the squad is thin
If he stays it won’t be for long. He seems to have lost the players, can’t fire them up and has a captain who doesn’t hustle the team on the pitch. It’s called attitude when it comes to the players on the pitch and it’s why Mav. got caught out for the second goal. Yes he lost the ball fair enough but ask yourself was one of his team moving to receive the ball? Why was there 2 players tackling him and not another west ham player within 10 yards? Attitude team work, without it you win nothing and Nuno doesn’t appear to instill this into the team. 😡
Can’t believe there are fans saying “Don’t judge Nuno after 2 games” We are judging him and his boring, no pace style after 9 months and it is not getting any better. Too many players cannot stand the guy, his communication skills are p-poor and his insistence on picking players out of position is laughable. Had he not fallen out with Magassa and Diouf and both had played yesterday, neither goal would have been conceded. Having a defensive midfielder in front of Statler and Wardolf would have made a huge difference. With just a few days remaining in the transfer window, and a board refusing to invest in a manager who the players and supporters have no confidence in, nothing will change. Time for Kretinsky and Nuno to move on. Staveley and Howe please.
This feels like deja vu. Moyes, Lopetigui, Potter and now Nuno. It seems players could be leaving not because we are in the championship but because of Nuno. We’ve got a new assistant coach who has had zero impact on the team.
It’s probably too late to reverse this exodus of talent as the transfer window is almost over and they will want out by then. A new head coach who we can’t really appoint without a qualified dof, one who will not make the same mistakes as the last chairman.
This is the perfect storm with both the team and board in disarray. We will be left with a team of somebody else’s players if Nuno goes and potentially just a caretaker manager until the boardroom can sort out its own mess.
Sack him asap!!
Said it before And I will say it again We NEED PACO he did a much much better job than Potter Lopetigui AND Nuno ALL put together