Attention may be temporarily on the FA Cup as the Hammers hope to have their ball in the draw for the quarter finals should they come out on top on Monday night, but the Premier league relegation battle is never far from anyone’s mind at the moment: Players or supporters.
Summer recruit el Hadji Malick Diouf has made his own opinion clear – his team mates are good enough to get out of the mess they’ve somehow gotten themselves in. As per whufc.com the AFCON trophy winner and summer recruit to West Ham’s defence is adamant that their current lowly eighteenth position won’t define their season:
“West Ham don’t deserve this place. I was talking to one of my friends and I told him we have a really good squad, really good players, so the situation, I don’t understand.
el Hadji Malick Diouf is convinced that Jemez has been instrumental in orchestrating the West Ham upturn
“But I know every moment we can change it and now we start to change. I know, I know the team, I know the players and we have a really good squad, so I think we can change it and I know we are going to do the job. It’s our goal.”
And Diouf makes it clear where the January turnaround in form has come from. It is no co-incidence, evidently, that no sooner did assistant head coach Paco Jemez appear, the Hammers’ defence looked more organised and disciplined:
“The Senegal international also praised the influence of Head Coach Nuno Espírito Santo and First-Team Coach and former Spain international centre-back Paco Jémez, who was appointed in January.
“It’s because the work here, the work we do at training with the gaffer and Paco,” he explained. “They are doing a really good job because, especially Paco, he’s helped us a lot as defenders.”
However the ‘points for’ column doesn’t lie and the Hammers need to fix the dire early season lack of results with another five wins coming from somewhere. Which’d take them to 43 points and surely, safety for this season at least: Nottinhgham Forest won a point at the Etihad. Who’s to say the Irons cannot go one better in a rerun of the Tevez-inspired result at Old Trafford in 2007. Its football. And anything can happen.
Paco has done more in the last few weeks than Potter Lopatigui or Nino could do all put together IF we get relegated AND I hope not For me Paco should get the job IF Nuno walks
I’ve always liked Nuno and there’s no denying that he’s had impressive results at each club he’s been at (besides Spurs but won’t hold that against him) and the fact he’s taken Wolves and Forest into Europe speaks volumes.
For the inevitable “Buuuuut…” though- while he didn’t have an assistant, his tactics were genuinely infuriating at times.
IF we stay up (and it’s not looking as inconceivable as it did a few months back) then Paco deserves as much (if not more) praise as Nuno.
According to Mark from the WestHamWay if you look at us and the 3 above us form we are averaging in the last 5 games 1.6 points per game Spurs 0.6 and we are increasing they are decreasing Leeds and Forest are about 1.2 if that continues Spurs would likely only get another 5 points 6 at most.
Can’t guarantee that of course but I do think 40 will be enough so 4 wins rather than 5 hopefully we can score points in every game COYI!!!
Farke seems to think 38 will be enough, there’s an article later showing just how big the Spurts implosion is likely to be.
All down to Nuno !