NUNO Espirito Santo was meant to fix things. Fresh from transforming Nottingham Forest, the Portuguese coach was hired to point West Ham in the right direction after a dismal start to the season. If anything, though, Nuno’s arrival has succeeded only in highlighting just how deep the hole is that the Hammers have dug for themselves.

Friday’s 2-1 defeat to Leeds United was a new low for West Ham this season. If it wasn’t, the home loss to Brentford in the match before that certainly was. On both occasions, Nuno was visibly exasperated at the scale of the task in front of him. Only a few games into the job, he might be regretting answering the phone to the London Stadium outfit.

The Premier League table makes for grim reading for all those connected with the club. Relegation is a very real possibility, particularly as all three promoted teams – Burnley, Leeds and Sunderland – appear more competitive than any of the other sides to have come up from the Championship in recent times.

West Ham face a scrap for survival. Relegation, however, might not be a bad thing. It would severely impact the club’s bottom line, but West Ham need a full reset. On and off the pitch, the club needs fresh direction and a new identity. Dropping down to the Championship would help them do that.

 

One way or another, the short-termism that has taken hold at the London Stadium must be eradicated. West Ham have jumped from one manager to the next without any thought to what they should stand for as a team and a club. They are completely lost without any sort of overarching vision.

What’s the common thread between Graham Potter and Nuno? One likes to play possession-heavy football while the other is known for organising teams to be compact and defensive-minded against the ball. How can Nuno be expected to mould West Ham in his own image when the squad has been built for an entirely different purpose?

The idea that West Ham have built their squad for any sort of clear playing style might be giving them too much credit. Under Potter, the Hammers lacked ball-players in the centre of the pitch, making his proactive, front-foot approach impossible to execute. West Ham never played like a Potter team.

They aren’t playing like a Nuno team right now either. West Ham are wide open at the back and don’t have the speed to play directly on the counter-attack. This is the result of years of mismanagement, meaning West Ham’s squad is a mish-mash of different players who all play a different way.

David Moyes’ departure at the end of the 2023/24 campaign was meant to progress West Ham as a modern team capable of playing attractive football. Instead, they have taken a series of steps backwards that could now lead to relegation. This is a mess of the Hammers’ own making.

Dropping down to the Championship would at least give West Ham the chance to wipe the slate clean. They could use the opportunity to instil some principles and values that stretch beyond merely trying to stay up in the Premier League. A season or two in the second tier would allow the Hammers to rebuild from the ground up.

To truly do this, West Ham would likely need new owners. The club desperately lacks ambition at the executive level, and so there’s no guarantee David Sullivan and Karen Brady would be able to guide the Hammers back to the Premier League in better shape after relegation. Otherwise, though, it could be the sharp shock that brings them back to life.

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