Nuno Espírito Santo’s bold selection of Pablo, Adama Traoré, and Mahamadou Kanté paid off handsomely during last night’s FA Cup victory over Brentford.
It was just another example of a manager who is not only growing in confidence at West Ham but also winning over supporters following a mediocre start to his Hammers career.
I, for one, was wary about Espírito Santo at West Ham, whilst also understanding that it cannot be easy for any manager to work under the ownership of David Sullivan, whilst Karren Brady lurks in the background.
But just like David Moyes before him, Nuno is showing his ‘secret sauce‘ – his ability to work within the parameters and peculiar limitations of the Hammers board and is beginning to build a team in his own image.
There were moments during last night’s game when I thought the team played some of the best football I’ve seen in quite some time.
Traore won a penalty and justified Nuno’s selection
Nuno Growing Into the West Ham Job
There now seems to be an assuredness and certainty in Nuno’s team selections which simply wasn’t evident when he first took up the reins at the London Stadium.
Two back-to-back games in particular against Brentford and Leeds United saw him deploy Ollie Scarles at right-back, with a midfield pairing of Tomáš Souček and Andy Irving.
Suffice to say, it failed — and predictably so — because any West Ham fan would have been able to tell Nuno they were bad decisions. But I guess he had to learn for himself.
The loss against Wolverhampton Wanderers, who up to that point had not won a single Premier League game all season, was a particular low point.
Nuno sat slouched on the bench looking overwhelmed by the task ahead of him and as if he was in very a dark place.
A Very Different West Ham Manager Emerging
That man is almost unrecognisable from the coach who now sits in the West Ham dugout. In a few short months he has emerged from those shadows.
He is beginning to build a West Ham team that, I’m sure, not too many sides would relish playing at the moment.
For the first time in quite a while it feels like there is an opportunity to build something at West Ham.
Remaining in the Premier League is going to be absolutely crucial, but I have to say that for the first time in a long time I feel confident the club have the right man for the job.
Best bit of our win against Brentford was our penalties. I used to take the penalties during my 30 years of playing mens football (biggest crowd was around twenty) and I practised taking them in the early years.
Right footed, I quickly found that too much effort kicking to the left was dodgy. Not as accurate as I would like. However, 18″ under the bar and 18″ inside the right post with good power always resulted in a goal. With the mucky spots I would revert to the Geoff Hurst method of hard as I could under the bar and between the posts. If I didn’t know where it was going – how could the keeper? I can still recall two ‘lucky’ saves but the rest hit the back of the net.
I could never understand why professional footballers were unable to confidently dispatch a penalty kick.
Imagine my delight when Wilson, Soucek and Mavropanos whack the balls into the postage stamp. No messing and no chance of the goalkeeper saving any of them.
The other two were fine penalties from players who are comfortable with their style. But the other three were straight off the practice ground. Time well spent at training. Proper coaching.
Glenn Hoddle, England manager, said ‘you can’t practice them things’ after England had put up a poor show in a vital penalty shoot-out. I very much disagreed at the time and still do.
Penalty kicks against Brentford warmed the cockles of my heart. Get in there. Take that.
COYI
Westham are now in a good position to overtake several clubs in the league table and have the coach , squad and belief to beat anyone . If Westham can get positive results against Man City and Villa then it’s a sprint over the last 7 matches .
Yes the starting 11 was excellent but why start substituting them not only risking injury to our first 11 but there was no need as the boys were excellent all he achieved in this game as in many others over his reign was to lose momentum and hand the initiative to Brentford.
The fact is he is not good enough does not know how to manage a team and has put us in a desperate position that we should not be in we have a great squad and as the starting 11 proved last night we have excellent depth I just hope we stay up despite Nuno not because of him.
Good article and so nice to have some genuine positivity around us for a change. When I saw the line up and saw no Potts or Magassa but Kante and the selection of Adama I feared the worse but happy to proved wrong on all counts