It seems West Ham’s draw away at Watford marked something of a sea change in fan patience as the ‘sacked in the morning‘ chant greeted Nuno’s attempt to thank away supporters at full time.
It isn’t the three games this season that have tipped the balance, more a cumulative frustration borne out of waiting, endlessly, for him to fumble around looking in vain for the correct mix of West Ham’s eleven herbs and spices: Less bang-bang chicken, more like bang average.
Drawing parallels with the ‘end of days’ of previous West Ham Managers is not a good omen for Espírito Santo, especially when it comes from the respected keyboard of the NY Times this morning:
“Former managers Graham Potter, Julen Lopetegui and David Moyes all preached patience and togetherness when they were subjected to similar chants, but it ultimately accelerated their departures.
Could Nuno share Graham Potter’s fate?
On September 20, 2025, fans called for Potter to be jettisoned during a 2-1 home loss to Crystal Palace. He was sacked a week later. On December 3, 2024, fans turned on Lopetegui during a 3-1 loss to Leicester City. The Spaniard, only six months into his stint at the club, was sacked 34 days later.
History suggests Nuno could have the same fate. His pleas for patience are falling on deaf ears, with West Ham looking anything but promotion favourites.”
Now we all know we are a fickle bunch and would rather see a 5-3 loss with some flair and 100% commitment to the cause than a tepid 1 -1 draw without the ambition, fire or passion, but Nuno’s pleas for patience would be received a lot better if he’d taken a risk with Josh Ajala (two goals already last week remember) in the closing minutes, instead of than sticking on another defender with five minutes remaining on the clock.
Nuno, if you want to win the fans back, it’s easy. Just show them you really, really, really want to win. Get your best eleven on the field and just tell them to go and outscore their opponents instead of trying, in vain, to defend solidly. We can’t.
This is the championship, where blood and guts wins more than tippy tippy side-side-back caution.
We had enough of that last season. As the fans are now telling you loud and clear.
Under Nuno we will most likely end up in EFL divison one his tatics clearly dont work and he seems incapable of positive attacking tatics dont want to keep hearing how things will come good give it time etc etc the truth is he just not intrested in what hapens to our great club.he will still pick up his big.wages regardless we need a manager that deploys positive tatics with a winning mentality otherwise we will continue to struggle
His only plus point is he’s giving youth a chance and it’s been a long time since we’ve seen that. Maybe Zola but that was more out of necessity than choice.
Besides that Nuno really is useless and I suspect is waiting to be pushed.
Would like to see Bellamy back. He’s talked in the past about how he was pushed out of the club to fund the debt and wasn’t given a choice (two sides to every story) but if true I suspect he’ll have a point to prove.
from what I saw at Watford, we only had a couple of new players playing, the rest were from last year’s squad.
same players gets the same result.
these players couldn’t do it last season, they won’t do it this season.
same manager cost us points last season, doing the same this season.
Same shareholders last season as this season.
it’s all the same rubbish as last year, why, because nothing has changed.
Spot on. Nothing changes, unless something changes. We can’t compete doing what we’re doing, we can’t compete by copying what others do, we will only be as good as them.
We need to find our own way, and get busy doing it.
At least five outfield players were new additions. 50% of the team have been playing together for less than a month.
Golambeckis, Veltman, Solomon,
Mukasa, Engels and Piroe (sub), all played.
Not a NES admirer, but to claim that it was last seasons players isn’t an accurate observation 🤔
Made awfull selections & 2 Mendes backhander transfers when all we needed was to loan another proven premiership goalscorer along with Wilson! If he couldnt do that easy fix hard to see how he’s gonna shape this all over the place squad
Made awfull selections & 2 Mendes backhander transfers when all we needed was to loan another proven premiership goalscorer along with Wilson! If he couldnt do that easy fix hard to see how he’s gonna shape this all over the place squad
Can’t say i blame them considering how well Wolves are doing
AND I am fed up with hearing how things will change when he has his own team
the players are professionals (if spoken to clearly shouldn’t make this much difference )
I can’t see any change IF he doesn’t talk to any of them OR keeps upsetting them
I think that’s why they want to leave
It has been said that the team prefer potter than him they cannot understand his methods
Seems to me it’s not only the fans that want him gone but a lot of players too He is holding them back making them look like headless chickens NOT the manager for us
i initailly thought he might be the one although I have never met him But from what I have read I don’t think I want to Sounds to me FAR TOO tempremental
I was about to write the same thing but Steve1963 beat me to it. All the over the top negative stuff you write Martin was at least palatable this post. If stat’s won us games we’d be top, let’s just out score the rest and sod the stat’s.
Nunos pleas for patience are falling on deaf ears but how about Nunos pleas for new players of a good enough quality to make a positive difference to the team?
Great article Martin.
Nuno won’t change as he is a safety first defensive manager.Yes we might have a lot of possession but as you mentioned it’s all tippy tappy football and that just doesn’t work in the championship. .
How many chances does fraud need. Relegation 2 points against 3 abysmal championship teams. Dumps the kids, negative tactics through out. Never the man in the first place.
Why do we hang onto these shot useless managers. Always sacking at the wrong time.
Bellamy please
We could suffer another relegation and this time next year the incompetent fool would still be pleading for patience
Amazing for once I totally agree with you, get him gone and bring back some passion win or lose dont care just show what we are made of. If we lose so be it but at least look like you care