Surely it cannot simply be a coincidence that West Ham United are suddenly playing their best football of the season, while racking up three successive wins, after Paco Jemez joined Nuno Espirito Santo’s coaching staff.
That was a point many of our Hammers News readers made in the aftermath of last weekend’s 3-1 trouncing of Sunderland.
Paco Jemez is a popular man at the London Stadium already. The way he argued his corner against Nuno Espirito Santo as Max Kilman was stood, awkwardly waiting to enter the fray in the dying embers, certainly earned the 55-year-old Spaniard plenty of admirers.
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Jemez is no wallflower, that’s for sure.
And his impact behind the scenes at Rush Green should not be underestimated. If the West Ham United fans felt that an upturn in form following Jemez’s arrival was more than a simple coincidence, well, that’s because it was.
Left-back Ollie Scarles opened up on Jemez’s impact a few days ago. Now, ahead of Saturday’s trip to Chelsea, it was the turn of Konstantinos Mavropanos.
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Konstantinos Mavropanos raves about West Ham United assistant coach Paco Jemez
As West Ham close in on signing Chelsea defender Axel Disasi, Mavropanos has more to lose than most right now. The Frenchman will be after his spot in Nuno’s backline. All the Greek giant can do, then, is keep playing as he has been since the turn of the year, in the hope that Nuno eventually decides against changing a winning formula.
There is a reason why Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique love Paco Jemez, meanwhile. He famously turned a vastly-overachieving Rayo Vallecano into one of Europe’s best in-possession teams a decade ago. Enrique, then at Barcelona, lauded his compatriot’s ‘attacking mentality’.
Clearly, though, Jemez knows how to organise a backline as well.
“He tries to help a lot, especially the backline,” Mavropanos tells the club’s official website, days after Scarles credited Jemez with ‘strengthening our back four’.
“There were things, obviously, that were missing in our games. Sometimes, the basics. I think in the first half of the season, some basic stuff of defending in general was missing and he’s just trying to improve that individually and collectively, how we should work as a team.
“We’d got into bad habits, so we’re working on it daily in training which helps us a lot to improve and be more focused and more ready for the games.”
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West Ham still have the worst defensive record in the Premier League. But the flurry of set-piece concessions which defined the end of the Graham Potter era – the Hammers were conceding one set-piece goal a game on average at one point – have slowed considerably. Mavropanos remains the club’s most effective aerial defender, as well.
Putting him in ahead of Max Kilman gives the Londoners a height and physical advantage over many opposition forwards. Jean-Clair Todibo has been a man reborn, too, though Nuno can take a lot of credit for that.
Nuno shifted Todibo from the right to the left of the central defensive duo in November. Whatever the reason, it has reaped rewards.
“To be honest, I was always believing in myself and I was always working hard, even in the tough moments,” adds Mavropanos, who averaged nine clearances per game during successive wins over Sunderland and Spurs.
“But yeah, right now, when it comes with the results, it feels even better because the team is doing better, especially the last two or three games. To be part of this, it feels even better for the team and for me individually as well and it makes me feel obviously more comfortable.
“For sure [it helps to have consistency]. I mean, we’ve changed many, many systems the last one and a half, two years. I think with the players, there’s been a lot of rotation, which is normal because I think in the back line we have quality players, but obviously when you are getting into a specific position in each game and the team is stable, then you feel more stable in the team.
“So, yeah, it’s important.
“For me, it’s not a big problem if I change positions, but sometimes you have to stick with one plan and then you just have to follow it.”
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Former Wolves and Fulham winger Adama Traore could make his West Ham debut down the road at Stamford Bridge tomorrow. There is a chance that the aforementioned Disasi arrives too, though he would be ineligible to feature against his parent club.
Mavropanos has at least one more game, then, as West Ham’s starting centre-back.
“Obviously, some new players came in and they know the situation we are in,” he adds. “The only thing that they can do is give a little bit extra, a little boost to the team to push a bit more, and mentally they are ready for what they are going to find here. I think they helped us a lot.
“Also around the changing room, you can see we have more belief between ourselves right now. More energy and more will of winning.”
“I think the last couple of weeks it has been better than the whole season before,” he observed. “I think the game against QPR was a good, let’s say, new beginning.
“As we said to ourselves the same, this win could give us a bit of motivation and boost to go into the Premier League and win some games there as well and this is what we did afterwards with two games in a row.
“It feels around the training ground, around the whole Club, the stadium, the fans, a little better than the first half of the season. And I just hope that we can keep winning and get out of this situation soon.
“Also around the changing room, you can see we have more belief between ourselves right now, more energy and more will of winning.”
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