Just 17 months ago, while reflecting on his Wolves rise under Nuno Espirito Santo and weeks before that £40 million move to West Ham United, Max Kilman felt confident enough to speak publicly about his England ambitions.
That airing such hopes now would likely bring about nothing more than mirthful, mocking cries speaks volumes about how far Max Kilman’s reputation has fallen since swapping Molineux for the London Stadium.
Outjumped by Marc Guehi as West Ham United conceded a seventh set-piece goal in five Premier League matches, Kilman was at the scene of a Hammers crime once again on an afternoon in which Crystal Palace had Graham Potter teetering over the brink, rocks crumbling below his feet and tumbling into the precipice.
An England call-up for Kilman, an ambition he felt confident enough to speak out on as recently as that Guardian interview in April 2024, now feels about as likely as Potter turning the tide in East London.
A potential reunion with Nuno Espirito Santo then may not only bring about a stemming of the tide, but also the re-emergence of Kilman as a Premier League defender worthy of his name.
West Ham United’s Max Kilman explains how Nuno Espirito Santo developed him at Wolves
Hammers News can confirm that vice-chair Karren Brady held talks with Nuno Espirito Santo last week, even before Crystal Palace consigned Potter to a 14th defeat in 25 matches.
And while it has been suggested that owner David Sullivan would prefer the Slaven Bilic option – a typically low-cost, low-ambition alternative selected by the crumbling old monarch on his Irons throne – the man who broke those initial reports, Alan Nixon, now claims that Nuno and West Ham are ‘getting closer’.
One suspects that Kilman, who made his Wolves debut under Nuno in 2019 and credits the Iberian tactician for turning him into a Premier League stalwart with a £40 million price-tag, will be following this developing story with great interest.
“I was a big, strong boy but I had so much to work on,” Kilman told the Birmingham Mail while explaining the impact Nuno had on his rise in Old Gold.
“[Nuno improved] my game understanding and my physicality. When, I came in I had never played five at the back so I’ve had to adapt and understand my role as a defender. I’ve had to become stronger and sharper, and that’s what I lacked when I first came into Wolves.
“I had to know when to press, when to get tight to my man, when to cover, and understanding how to cover round my wing-back and work as a five.
“Nuno and the whole staff don’t just say, ‘It’s good enough’. There’s always room for improvement and they’re always trying to find ways to make us that little bit better.”
Nuno is a big Kilman fan and has a reputation for fixing defensive issues
That attention to detail and that defensive organisation is something Nuno took with him to Nottingham Forest in late-2023.
While dragging one of the fallen giants of European football back into continental action for the first time in 30 years, Forest’s remarkable success last season was built upon the rock-solid foundations of an excellent backline.
Nuno used a back-four at Nottingham Forest rather than the three-man system with which he also guided Wolves into European competition. Under him, Murillo and Nikola Milenkovic blossomed into one of the division’s most impressive partnerships.
Whether he could repeat the trick with Kilman and Konstantinos Mavropanos and/or Jean-Clair Todibo and Igor Julio remains to be seen, though Nuno’s reputation for turning defensive gems into oft-impenetrable diamonds bodes extremely well for a Hammers side who have conceded the most goals in the Premier League this season.
“If you know him personally, you can see that there’s a fantastic boy there,” Nuno told the official Wolves website back in October 2020, explaining how young Kilman had ousted the far-more experienced Romain Saiss.
“A boy that really is committed. He’s happy, and he sees embracing his own challenge of becoming better. He’s mature and is a good guy.
“All the players are different, and all the players have their own characteristics,” he added, explaining how Kilman’s Futsal past and his burgeoning defensive instincts made him one of the Premier League’s most promising talents at the time.
“The background and during the growing of Max as a player made him different than others. There has good things and has bad things [but] I think during this time – more than two years he’s been here – we’ve been able to improve the routines that he had before to make him better in terms of what we want for him to perform in a pitch.
“We try to give as much info, solutions, work and details that can make players better, and this is the case of Max.”
Five years on, pupil and mentor could be reunited, hopefully to pick up where they left off.
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