Gary Neville has urged West Ham to keep Nuno Espirito Santo even if they are relegated from the Premier League.
Following Sunday’s defeat to Arsenal, West Ham are increasingly likely to be relegated. They sit a point behind Tottenham having played a game more, and could fall further behind if Roberto De Zerbi’s men beat Leeds on Monday night.
Give us your response to Callum Wilson’s VAR heartbreak? 😫
The right call? Or harsh on Pablo?
Clearly, no one at West Ham United is giving up yet, but the mood here in east London is understandably low.
Still, Neville believes the likes of David Sullivan would be best served by keeping Nuno in place next season even if that is in the second tier.
Neville says West Ham owners should keep Nuno
The Sky Sports pundit was speaking after Nuno’s side lost to Arsenal in controversial fashion.
He said: “Whatever they need to do to keep him, they should keep him.
“Because that will do is stabilise things, it will stop the domino effect of ‘Well, if you lose the manager, you lose the best players’.
“The rest of them then that are still left have got excuses and the fans become demotivated. If you’re an owner of a club that goes down, what you want to do straight away is hang onto your manager if he’s the one not taking you down, which Nuno hasn’t.
“He’s the one that basically I think has given them hope.
“Then what you’d probably have to do is go to a [Jarrod] Bowen, a [Crysencio] Summerville, a Pablo [Felipe], a [Taty] Castellanos, a [Tomas] Soucek, a [Mateus] Fernandes and say ‘Okay, I need 12 months from you. I need you to get us back up, this great club and these 60,000 fans that will come and watch us can’t be in the Championship for more than one year’.”
Nothing can change now – but what do YOU want to hear from the PGMO?! 😳
I want to know why Rice on Dinos was ignored! 😡
The manner of Sunday’s defeat was clearly painful and the late VAR decision did take the wind out of West Ham’s sails. It is worth mentioning, however, that the damage really was done at Brentford a week before.
Had Nuno’s side not been so poor there, so much wouldn’t have been riding on the Arsenal game.
Nuno Espirito Santo set to leave West Ham if they are relegated
Regardless of what Neville said, the Nuno era could soon be over at West Ham.
While reports suggest that the Irons want to keep the 52-year-old even if they are relegated to the Championship, Hammers News understands Nuno will leave if West Ham are no longer a Premier League team next season.
At this stage, that is looking very unlikely indeed.
Nuno’s criticism of Sunday’s VAR call was understandable but, frankly, he has been unable to do enough to get West Ham above the dreaded drop zone so far.
Perhaps things would have been different had he started earlier in the campaign, but the first half of the Nuno era was hardly a success story.
Receive a digest of our best West Ham content each week direct to your mailbox
