You did not need a UEFA A-licence to see the mistakes Nuno Espirito Santo made during West Ham United’s potentially fatal 2-1 defeat by Nottingham Forest at the London Stadium on Tuesday night.
For a coach who took Wolves and Nottingham Forest into the Europa League, Nuno Espirito Santo’s team selections and game-management has been appallingly poor at times since replacing Graham Potter.
From that brief and baffling ‘inverted full-backs’ experiment to starting Lucas Paqueta up top, and selecting Andy Irving over Mateus Fernandes and Freddie Potts.
Imagine you are Nuno – What is the FIRST thing you are doing to save your job?
Nuno was supposed to represent a ‘safe pair of hands’ for West Ham United.
Instead, he has dropped the ball more frequently than the error-prone Frenchman flailing between the sticks.
West Ham threw away a lead to lose against the team now seven points ahead of them on the other side of the dotted line in midweek. Ollie Scarles was the Hammers’ stand-out performer and yet he was replaced on the hour mark, alongside the eternally-frustrating but occasionally match-winning talent that is Lucas Paqueta.
Cue bemusement, with even Hammers fanatic-turned-Hollywood thespian Ray Winstone asking serious questions of the man with the worst win-rate in the club’s Premier League era.
Ray Winstone questions Nuno Espirito Santo after latest West Ham United loss
Hammers News reported this week, albeit before Forest snatched a late win in East London, that Nuno retains the support of David Sullivan and vice-chair Karren Brady. Rumours of a Harry Redknapp return have been scotched, too.
Yet Winstone, ten years younger than the man some had tipped to make a staggering return to his old stomping ground, is just one of thousands of supporters rapidly losing faith.
There were only 34,000 in attendance at the London Stadium on Tuesday. The empty seats said more than words ever could.
“Nuno, he has done some funny things,” Winstone tells talkSPORT with West Ham on The Edge of Darkness and wondering if they struck Fool’s Gold with Potter’s replacement; soon to be Departed from the first division.
“Scarles, for me, was playing a blinding game. More tackles than anyone on the pitch, and he takes him off. Now there may be reasons – he might have had a niggle, he might have seen something that the rest of us didn’t see – but I don’t know why he took him off.
“And Paqueta, who’s a game-changer at times, he took him off.
“Why would [Redknapp] want the aggravation, to be quite honest with you?,” Winstone adds when asked about a Harry homecoming. “I mean, if you have to keep changing the manager month after month, it seems there’s other problems.
“There’s obviously problems going on at the club.”
Winstone slams VAR decisions in Nottingham Forest clash
A bit of luck would be very welcome right now, of course. There was no good fortune coming Nuno’s way on Tuesday though.
Tomas Soucek thought the penalty was a ‘joke’, Nottingham Forest snatching an 89th minute winner from the spot after Alphonse Areola accidentally collided with Morgan Gibbs-White.
There was also the small matter of Crysencio Summerville having his first goal since the Julen Lopetegui era ruled out by VAR. Taty Castellanos was certainly beyond the last defender, but did Nikola Milenkovic not tackle the ball into his path?
Which youngster would you most like to see START vs QPR in the FA Cup?
A chance for an up-and-coming keeper? A full debut for Kante, perhaps?
“I thought we were very unlucky last night,” Winstone argues. And who would dare argue back?
“I think the VAR decisions were diabolical. The offside goal, [the ball] was touched back by a defender. That’s what I saw, but I did have a couple of Jamesons at the time!
“But for me, it was a goal. And the penalty was not a penalty. Mind you, if I was a Nottingham Forest fan I’d probably be screaming for a penalty. But at the same time, Soucek cleared the ball before it even got near the goalkeeper.
“So I don’t know what you’re supposed to do in those sort of situations when you’re down the bottom. I guess nothing goes for you. Our problems go back further than that, and it’s halfway through the season now.
“[But] we’ve still got time.”
West Ham will face Queens Park Rangers in the FA Cup third round on Sunday. A chance for some respite, and a potential confidence booster against second-tier opposition.
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