In stark contrast from the previous games in this heatwave summer of 2026, today’s fixture at Vicarage Road took place amidst a downpour that made for slick, fast passing and slippery footing. West Ham of course made their traditionally awful start and went behind as Mads ‘T Rex’ Hermansen found himself lobbed from the edge of the box, and it was only at that stage that the Irons were stung into faster paced play.
There’s still a lethargy about West Ham in the opening minutes of each game so far in this Championship season.
Whether it is a relegation hangover or simply a bad, learned habit from a group of players too used to losing – it needs fixing and West Ham need to learn to hit the ground running in this division rather than repeatedly giving mediocre sides a head start.
Taty Castellanos deserves the award for ‘chasing down lost causes’ which resulted in West Ham’s equaliser, a bizarre goal where Taty chased and harried his defender all the way back to Watford’s goal line, won the ball and poked it into the centre of the six yard box for a backtracking Watford player to hoof into his own net. Any doubts about the Argentine’s commitment to the cause have surely evaporated seeing his willingness to close down in that first half.
Debutant Golambeckis didn’t put a foot wrong on his Championship debut.
No such lethargy in the second half as West Ham started on the front foot, taking the game to their opponents, Solomon and Engels catching the eye with running and good delivery from set pieces from the Belgian.
Piroe and Orford coming on for Kante and Mukasa had the potential to take West Ham to a better level, Kante in particular had been poor for most of the game. Sadly, ‘normal service continued’ and the Hammers pressed and pushed but couldn’t get the final ball as time ticked away.
Bowen at least had a shot, Piroe blasted one wide and that was pretty much all the Hammers had to show for most of the possession once more. Not good enough.
Strangely Nuno brought on Ollie Scarles for Walker Peters with five minutes on the clock: Hardy going for the win, Nuno, with Ajala kicking his heels on the bench. Seems he can’t help himself. Too cautious. Too slow. ‘Respect the point“? Rubbish.
Seems we are missing a player that can find the back of the net.Confidence seems so low infront of goal but had a lot of the ball again
Surprised Kante played when there is talk of him leaving and Orford has played so well and deserves his place alongside Engles
It will come
I not sure on Nuno is it his fault or the players again, we had enough possession to have won the game
Nuno is definitely not the right coach to get us out of the championship! We need to attack teams and take the games by the scruff of the neck! Nuno can’t play that type of football he’s just like Moyes and allardyce we need to create more but he doesn’t pick the right players to play offensively? We need Eddie Howe now!!!
Not good enough
Yep rubbish we are S..t , Nuno needs to go he has no clue where to put the players and still to slow
Could not agree more – spot on
Unless things change Nuno will be. Gone by Christmas
Pathetic !
Bye, bye Nuno, Bye, bye Nuno, it’s time for you to go. Play those energetic youngsters and ditch these boring slow old men. Including the Captain.
Get rid of Bowen? Yeah get lost mate. Probably our best player.
Nuno is killing us. We are the only team in football history to record more backwards passes than forwards. His tactics and formation kill any opportunity of going at the opposition. Kilman is awful, Kante’s second touch is a tackle, and Scarles needs to go out on loan. Why keep playing Taty as our 9? He’s a dog on that pitch but isn’t scoring 20 a season. Nuno and his cautious setup need to go before it’s more humiliation. Is anyone else getting the feeling, Bowen is feeling sorry for himself because nobody came in for him…!!
When will Nuno learn you can’t respect the point in this league. This was pretty much a must win game. Our target for a guaranteed promotion is now 2.279 points per game. Does anyone think Nuno can deliver this? Tuesday is looking like a must win game.
The way we’re playing we are going to get hammered by wolves during the week so hopefully the crowd will make sure it’s nunos last game in charge. If I hear the boys done good one more time I’m going to support the spuds.
It seems like the players haven’t got up to speed with the cut-and-thrust of the Championship yet. It seems a lot more combative than the Premier League and maybe they’re just not used to it yet. It’s a long season, i think we’ll gel as time goes on, it definitely wasn’t rubbish but you can definitely see every team so far plays like it is their most important game of the season. That’s going to add to our difficulties for sure