Latest Opinion

Here we go again. A dodgy draw, only a couple of wins and there are seriously folk walking amongst us who want the manager axed.

Such is the fantasy world of social media, and some of the younger generation’s belief that if it’s on a prettily-decorated website or YouTube, it must be true.




Now I know all this speculation about Nuno Espirito Santo has been denied, and maybe there is a mouthy idiot somewhere within the club - let’s face it, we have a club with more leaks than Wales - who may have sounded off after a few scoops and the painful draw at Bournemouth.

But does anyone with half a brain think West Ham are going to sack the coach for getting Callum Wilson’s substitution wrong?

As of Sunday’s visit of troubled Liverpool, Nuno will have been in charge for 64 days. Seven points from seven games. The previous unfortunate incumbent of the hot seat, the Swede that is Graham Potter, managed nine points from his final 14 league matches. Potter lasted eight months. Julen Lopetegui before him just seven months.

You get my drift. This is a circus that would embarrass even Bertram Mills. Trouble is, our employment of coaches/managers of late is no laughing matter, and in my view is all the responsibility of the clowns in the board room and their ring master.

The club appoints the wrong people to run the show, they sign off on a string of hopelessly expensive footballers, they allow their finances to fall into not just one, but two £100m debts, and there are still people out there who think they know what they are doing.




But all this latest nonsense is driven by social media accounts looking for clicks and notoriety. Now I’m going to look a complete clown if somewhere in the next month Nuno gets the bullet. ‘I told you so’ will spew from those social media accounts, and one in particular that somehow gets some credence because a national newspaper man gave them some credit.

I’ve no intention of mentioning them by name, that doesn’t help my point one little bit. I’ve been around this game, and the media, for 60 years, it’s possible if you have accumulated enough friends along the way to get a little guidance on such subjects. I prefer that method of checking flyers.

And I do go along with the idea that managers need and deserve a little time to get their act together.

Oh for the days when managers were given time. Ted Fenton, with the help of the visionary Malcolm Allison dragged us away from the war years, modernised to an extent, founded the academy, and after 11 years got us back into the top flight.

The great Ron Greenwood was in charge for 13 years, won the FA Cup and the European Cup Winners' Cup, reached a League Cup final and a semi-final as well as another European semi-final. As well as providing England with a quarter of a World Cup winning team.

Now you are never going to get that much time these days, I get that, but we have gone from managers being in charge for a year or so, to a few months and now someone is suggesting a few days. And people still believe the purveyors of such tripe.




It’s not my style to start defending managers, they are big enough and ugly enough to do that for themselves, but Nuno deserves some support here. He took over a squad that was unbalanced, full of deadwood with no fit striker and with limited depth, unless you count a bevy of 17, 18, 19 and 20 year olds.

At least Freddie Potts has finally been given his chance, and we have dragged the unfortunate Lewis Orford back from the hell of watching journeymen perform at Stevenage in the same week as he was invited to train with the full England squad.

Now that may be a little unfair on Stevenage, whose fans are now saying the kid wasn’t good enough for a team sixth in League One, and with a goals record that’s one of the worst in the division. And it’s a tough old physical league down there. But I bet Orford is blooded in the Premier League before Stevenage get into the Championship.

And Nuno knew when he took over, you assume, the perilous state of West Ham’s finances and their lack of squad depth. And that cannot be addressed until January.

By which time, if you start with the Bournemouth game, we have 10 crucial matches in 46 days. And when Liverpool arrive on Sunday, it will be the beginning of a searching spell of three matches in eight days, including Manchester United and Brighton away.

After that we have Aston Villa, Manchester City, Fulham, Brighton again, Wolves and Nottingham Forest before the first week of January. This schedule has been caused by two international breaks in a five-week spell.




This run of games will see us without our first choice full backs for a significant spell. And we can’t use Igor Julio against his parent club Brighton in those two games.

Aaron Wan-Bissaka (DR Congo) and Malick Diouf (Senegal) will be away at the African Cup of Nations, being staged in Morocco between 21 December and 18 January. The pair could miss potentially five matches.

Nuno is obviously well aware of that. He’s also here without what he is believed to want, and that’s his own backroom staff. Either we cannot afford them or they don’t want to join him, but so far only goalkeeping coach Rui Barbosa has joined him.

Now it’s good see our backroom academy and Under 21 coaches promoted to the first team, and this is not a criticism, but none of them have any Premier League coaching experience, and would they be here if Santo had been able to bring his backroom staff with him from Nottingham Forest?

As it is, Nuno is on his own in many ways, now seemingly the target of every rag-bag, one-man social media site. And they’ve all jumped on the line that the coach is under pressure. The last time I looked two millions folk had clicked into that one site and their prediction.

We’ll see, but my point is people believe this sort of stuff and it creates an unrealistic atmosphere. As long as Nuno doesn’t make any more perceived cock-ups from the bench, he may get through to Easter.

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