West Ham fans will ask themselves, critically, is there any improvement from the previous two games this season? Nuno Espírito Santo has had time with his group of players, yet the Hammers clearly struggled to impose themselves on their opponents for the third game in succession.
The Hammers on paper have a team that should have been able to get the job done at Vicarage Road and yet it seems they play most of the game with the handbrake on. Slow, safe passing, few risks and too many touches and too little pacy play against a side quite happy to sit back and then hit them on the break.
Having been a huge Mads Hermansen fan, I now find myself, later than most, admittedly, starting to wonder. The Dane was lobbed this afternoon in a way that you couldn’t consider feasible if Areola was between the sticks. For all Mads’ excellent distribution with quick feet, if he can’t reach the ball (he’s the same height as Jordan Pickford by the way..) then something needs to change.
Airidas Golambeckis could yet save West Ham fortune in the transfer market. We’ve seen youngsters have amazing debuts and then disappear (Freddie Potts…) but the eighteen year old looked completely at home alongside Max Kilman this afternoon and strolled around with a reassuring stature for one so young and put some in brilliant blocks and interceptions when needed.
Brilliant debutant Golambeckis
And West Ham need to bring back the fighting spirit of assistant manager Paco Jemez: The Spaniard was responsible for West Ham’s big upturn in form and Nuno simply isn’t cutting it three games in. Cautious, infuriatingly so, with a group of players that should easily have been able to overwhelm Watford yet played the first half looking as if they had been told to play safety first, pedestrian, low risk football.
Anyone at West Ham who bothered to watch the Birmingham v Middlesboro game would be terrified seeng the pace and ferocity with which those two sides attacked each other.
It is infuriating to watch this team underperform: I can’t imagine how it feels for Bowen or Solomon to put in the miles and yet find the performance is dour, fearful and unadventurous. All that does is land West Ham with NINETEENTH position in the league. Alarm bells ringing yet?
Nuno needs to go for all the reasons stated and more. Not sure that Hermansen should be dropped amd Arreola’s distribution is shocking and often gifts the opposition a goal.
The takeaway is that we are not good enough even at Championship level. That is how low Mr Sullivan has sunk us.
Thanks Martin for doing these articles after the game – it is difficult after another disappointing result
Undoubtedly Nuno is under pressure and will remain so until we string together a sequence of wins
However IMHO until the boardroom issues are resolved I don’t see us changing managers
I also liked Paco Jemez – but now Nuno has his longtime sidekick around I don’t see him coming back
Tough days indeed to be a West Ham fan
COYI
Nuno needs to go. No point waiting until 10 games in and we’re well off the pace.
Nothingi is going to change and he seems totally dead behind the eyes.
No alarm bells ringing for me. We are still finding our feet in this difficult league. Today was a decent away point. The Watford goal flicked up off Veltman, so I’m not sure why Mads is getting criticised.
I think Nuno got rid of Paco because he’s frightened of how good he was showing Nuno up. We need to get him even if that means Nuno going almost bottom of the league won’t be long before we are. We will be in the same boat as last year fighting relagation. So many young players with energy sat on the bench maybe if Nuno put his glasses on he could see what’s needed.
Let’s see where we are in 11 days, 4 games where we should win 3 of them