Such is the trust that Nuno Espírito Santo has won at West Ham that there was hardly a murmur when the much-changed team was announced for yesterdays encounter against former Champions Manchester City.
The Hammers’ boss has come a long way from the ‘experimentations’ that saw key players out of position and points thrown away in those early games: Despite a thrilling FA Cup victory against Brentford on Monday night, Nuno switched his team with three at the back and ‘Fonz Areola dropped in favour of Mads Hermansen.
Even just a couple of months ago that would have been enough to ‘trigger’ Irons fans who saw the Dane as a huge Hammers liability.
Mads Hermansen has just kept on doing what he does and has slowly won over the doubters. Last night’s string of fine saves served to stamp his authority back on the game – even after the Bernardo Silva ‘chip’ eluded him.
Finally looking like he belongs” Mads Hermansen
However unlike his early season form, what followed after the lobbed goal that sailed agonisingly over his outstretched hand was no crumbling of confidence, no capitulation by the goal keeper or his team mates.
Hermansen carried on with a series of saves including the stop from Haaland which was, in Joe Cole’s words: “an incredible save “- from co-commentator Ally McCoist : “It’s an excellent save because it goes through the defenders legs – a brilliant save, he sees it late” .
There’s more to his play than being ‘just’ a shot stopper: Hermansen recycles the ball so fast to his midfield, thanks to some nifty footwork, that opponents don’t get the chance to set up for a high press. Something often overlooked, but another key difference between the Dane and his French counterpart at West Ham.
Plaudits will ring out for the whole Hammers back line who fought with tenacity and concentration for 97 solid minutes. But the quiet, unassuming Dane should be justly proud of completing his own triumph over early season disaster to rescue his own career and now stand at the head of the queue to don the gloves in the remainder of West Ham’s survival fight.
We took a point in a game with a team that has an outside chance of winning the title… I’ll not gripe with that.
One word Fantastic
Never dreamt that we would get a point
Every player played their hearts out
Pablo brings energy to the team, Mavrapanos was out of this world and nice to see Hermansen encouraging the defence and organising, love Bowen as captain but is a bit quiet on the vocal front, so he has a second in command to egg the players on
Let’s get more noise like the European games when the stadium rocked at the last few games to drive the team on
Well done Nuno and team have got the team ticking
Come on you irons
The defensive unit has come a very long way since the dark days of the Kilman era. Single handedly he destroyed the confidence of those around him without contributing a thing to the team . The Paqueta side show can now be forgotten as a bad dream . Onwards and upwards there is a flickering light at the end of the tunnel. COYI ⚒️
In the Areola v Hermansen dual, I prefer Hermansen, but personally rank them accordingly:
Commanding the box: Hermansen better than Areola, but not when wrappen in by opposition players (corner etc). In those scenarios Areola is slightly better, but they are both quite poor.
Shot stopping / reflexes: Areola the better of the two, but a strength for both.
Distribution: Hermansen far better.
Tendency to box: Hermansen far better. He is excellent at holding the ball!
Ball control: Hermansen far better. Good composure and ball control whereas Areola will kick it far and inaccurate.
One big difference is Hermansen is a throwback to goalkeepers who used to make a point of catching the ball, which has its own risks. Hermansen catches shots with his body/head behind the ball in the traditional goalkeeping manner – so he stops it dead. Areola automatically palms shots away, as he was taught no doubt, sometimes straight back into the mix of players and the danger is not over & impossible to defend reliably, once the ball is ricocheting around, or a corner is given, or a defender hoofs it desperately away. Creates chances for the opposing forwards.
We have 2 good keepers – Areola did great against Brentford.
And he came out & caught everything, unlike Areola who drops the ball occasionally or tends to punch the ball away, enabling the opponent to launch attacks straight away.
Mads was launching attacks as soon as he caught the ball.
Potter brought in:
Mateus Fernandes – about £38.5m
Hermansen – about £20m
Diouf – about £19m
Magassa – about £14.7m
plus a few free transfers.
We were also obligated to buy Todibo once we stayed up in the 2024/25 season.
After Nuno came in, most of the signings were made in January 2026:
Castellanos – about £25.2m
Pablo Felipe – about £20m
Adama Traoré – around £2m.
Disasi is unfortunately only on loan.
A lot of fans still give Potter stick, but looking back I actually think his recruitment was really smart. Nuno’s signings have been decent too, but for me they’re not quite at the same level.
Overall I think we’ve got a very good squad now. A lot of these players would have suited Potter’s positional system really well. That said, Nuno deserves credit as well — he’s done a solid job implementing his own style. It’s a simpler system than Potter’s, but it seems to be working.
Potter ? Please!
Doesn’t matter who potter bought we would still have JWP and Rodriguez playing. Potter also said we don’t need a forward and our squad was big enough. Yesterday’s game was a tough watch but it was one game where the manager set out to get exactly what we ended up with. But he changes the system and way we play. More importantly there is real team spirit and we never had any of that with potter. Can we stop talking about that busted flush please.
I can understand that Graham Potter had difficulties with team spirit when more than half of the squad had to be replaced because it had become too old. Jean-Clair Todibo put in a good performance against Manchester City. However, Todibo did not fit particularly well into Potter’s system because he is a relatively untechnical player who also has problems with his passing, despite his other strengths such as good positioning and strong running ability.
Apparently, he also had some attitude problems, as Potter had to urge him to put more effort into training. This resulted in Todibo arriving late to the next training session.
My view is that Todibo’s style of play fits better in the system used by Nuno Espírito Santo than in Graham Potter’s system. ⚽
I agree Perse, the Potter/MacAuley transfers were largely a succees and we’re a great start to the overhaul of an aged squad.
The rumours/stories about fall outs, inability to deal with strong personalities &/or the leadership group suggest his biggest issue was man management and getting the players to respect him and believe in him. Nuno clearly had the buy in of the squad, given the work rate and improved performance from many of the players. Tobido is a different player, magnificent yesterday. Mavropanos is far more consistent. Summerville has ‘arrived’. Most importantly we look like a team with a purpose.