There was moment this afternoon that summed up exactly how Nuno Espírito Santo is approaching this season in the Championship.
No matter how much he makes the same lamentable excuses, compliments his (modest) opposition and shrugs off more points dropped, the Portuguese manager has the wrong mindset and is throwing away the start to this season in the same way Graham Potter threw away West Ham’s season this time last year.
West Ham needed a win. West Ham had the players to win. Yet on 85 minutes, when he should have been searching for a key to unlock Watford’s defence and grab a winner, Nuno’s ‘substitution master stroke’ was to take off defender Kyle Walker Peters and bring on – defender Ollie Scarles.
Toothless, ambition-free and laughable considering the Hammers pre-season rating as favourites for automatic promotion.
Nuno needs to glance at the Championship table : He’s paid probably double what any other manager in this league is earning and yet his side turns up and plays with fear and negativity as if still in the grip of last season’s relegation battle.
Championship League table
The only saving grace this year is that opponents aren’t as good as last season. Was this ‘away at Anfield’? Hardly, yet that’s how he approached it.
As I wrote earlier, someone needs to get on the blower to Paco Jemez pretty damned quick.
Nineteenth position in a league we sould be bossing. And it is that word that is the important one; Bossing. West Ham aren’t doing anything except ‘bossing’ the pointless possession’ statistic.. Going nowhere, playing with fear, no ambition, no drive. For the 50,000 home fans who have to sit at London Stadium and endure this negativity, expect the unrest to begin pretty soon.
Nuno has had over forty games to build something better than this.
At what point do we start thinking the unthinkable? This isn’t about the first 3 games of this season this is just a continuation of his negative tactics, his total lack of ambition and an overall malaise that has an iron grip on the team it appears.
We have lost a number of Premier League players and replaced them with lesser players. Once those new players settle we may be competitive, but we have no God given right to be bossing games. There are some very good teams in this division and perhaps it’s time we approached matches with a little more humility. Yes we were a Premier League team last year, but we weren’t a very good one. Let’s be more realistic
Seriously he couldn’t stop relegation even with plenty of time to win enough games and NOW with a pretty decent squad the negativity and slow build up allows EVERY team to put 11 men behind the ball! It’s beyond pathetic!!
Of course the problem is NUNO!
Bring in Eddie Howe immediately!! Before we’re 12 points off the top!
I love this bring in EH nonsense, like.he is gonna come to West Ham.
3pts win 1pt draw.
The championship is about scoring goals. Nuno should be ordered by the directors it’s 4-4-3 or 4-2-4-1 . Or else he needs to go. 4-4-2-1 doesn’t cut it.
I don’t think we would even win with the extra player you think we should have 😂