The Influence of the Backroom Team
A manager’s reputation rises or falls with the people he surrounds himself with, and West Ham’s recent history shows just how much a backroom team can shape a club’s direction.
Over the years, West Ham have had their fair share of interesting names within their coaching staff.
David Moyes was shrewd enough to work with some solid choices in Stuart Pearce—known for his leadership, defensive expertise and mentoring young players—Kevin Nolan, a like-for-like replacement, and Paul Nevin, who brought Premier League and England experience. Alan Irvine added analytical strengths, while even Mark Warburton passed through briefly before leaving in 2023 in search of a senior role that never arrived; he now works with Sporting Club Jacksonville in the US.
Moyes also benefited from inheriting goalkeeper coach Xavi Valero, whose résumé includes Real Madrid, Liverpool, Inter, Napoli and Chelsea, before he departed during Graham Potter’s tenure.
Enzo Maresca once served as assistant manager under Manuel Pellegrini, while Slaven Bilić relied heavily on first‑team coach Edin Terzić. Bilić’s trusted fitness coach, Milijenko Rak, raised eyebrows due to his age—68 when he joined, 70 when he left in 2017.
Terzic and Bilic were a good partnership for West Ham
Between 2008 and 2010, Steve Clarke—now Scotland’s national team manager—worked closely with Gianfranco Zola and played a major role in shaping training sessions.
From Stability to Instability
Fast‑forward to the present and the scale of turnover is striking. In only two seasons, West Ham have cycled through four managers—Moyes, Julen Lopetegui, Graham Potter and now Nuno Espírito Santo—alongside an extraordinary sixteen members of support staff, a list that includes Kevin Nolan, Billy McKinlay, Johnny Heitinga, Henry Newman, Rob Newman, Tim Steidten, Pablo Sanz, Oscar Caro, Juan Vicente Peinado, Edu Rubio, Kyle Macaulay, Casper Ankergren, Linus Kandolin, Bruno Saltor, Billy Reid and Narcís Pèlach.
Given that level of turnover, it’s hardly surprising that Nuno arrived to find a patchwork of academy and holdover staff, and has so far only been able to add Paco Jémez and Rui Barbosa as his goalkeeper coach—without a dedicated Technical Director of Recruitment.
The cycle of rebuilding keeps repeating, which ultimately left Nuno starting from a position of compromise rather than control when he joined the club in September 2025.
It is time to listen to the manager appointed and acquire the back room staff they require to do t]he job they have been given.
Our best PL spell under Moyes was when he had COVID and Stuart Pierce was managing things while speaking on the telephone to Moyes. It carried on when Moyes returned, with Pierce sitting high up in the stands and communicating with Moyes via radio to the bench. Bring back Pierce!
Westham a club run by idiots have little chance of survival .
It seems since Jemez has been in we are a lot better than we were under Nuno and if there is another change needed we should keep Paco
What else could we possibly expect !!!!!
We are a team DEEP in crisis.
Sorry and I don’t want to contradict your article – but there is a dedicated Technical Director of Recruitment going by the name of Sullivan, I guess that in his own mind he is Director of Everything . . . and incompetent at all of them . . .
Good point – I am still not sure whether Nuno wanted to work with some of the academy coaches by choice
Lots of Moyes coaches made a good contribution but IMHO Mark Warburton was a nasty piece of work who only contributed snide digs at Moyes
In hindsight we should have stuck with Loppy until the end of last season to avoid such a turnover
His first 2 matches he selected Ollie Scarles at right back; totally wrong for a fairly left footed young player but surely the Academy coaches should have told him that or were they too afraid for their positions? We have had a series of strange substitutions eg Bournemouth, Chelsea, which have contributed to our losing points. David Moyes had a trusted lieutenant in Alan Irvine; every manager needs that.