Why another Nuno Espirito Santo reunion could bring an end to West Ham’s match made in hell

So, for the second time in four days, Nuno Espirito Santo should be assured of a fine reception from the fans. Even if, once again, they are not the West Ham fans. If Nuno derbies come in pairs, they also get bigger. West Ham’s 3-0 defeat to a previously winless Wolverhampton Wanderers side means his first reunion with Nottingham Forest could assume fatal consequences: for him, and for West Ham’s chances of retaining top-flight football.

Lose to Forest and they would be seven points from safety. Lose, too, and Nuno may have the rare distinction of managing two clubs in a season when each has three managers. Forest had got there by the end of October. Their return of no points from the four festive fixtures is actually one fewer than West Ham’s: yet Sean Dyche, appointed in part for supposed similarities to Nuno, is closer to safety. For Nuno, the manager whose feats in taking both Wolves and Forest to seventh, their highest finish in decades, guarantee him popularity in corners of the West and East Midlands, 17th would look an achievement now.

It also looks distant. West Ham’s 3-0 capitulation at Molineux doubled Wolves’ points tally for the season. It ranks as the worst result anyone has got this season; perhaps the worst performance, too. It had Nuno issuing a public apology to the fans; West Ham’s. Rushing into his rebound relationship with the Hammers, 18 days after breaking up with Evangelos Marinakis and Forest, seems a major mistake. A manager whose best teams are cautious and canny appears to have behaved in a very different way himself by taking the job.

This is a perfect storm, West Ham-style: Nuno is not being the Nuno they thought they hired while the endemic problems of a misrun club look insurmountable. Nuno’s decision-making has felt warped. He seemed a logical appointment but has made illogical choices. Using inverted full-backs early in his tenure was just bizarre. He has a fine record of getting No 9s to score – just look at Chris Wood – but has often chosen teams without a striker. His sides can be reassuringly solid, but West Ham concede almost two goals per game under him – 28 in 15 – and have no clean sheet; indeed their only one all season came against his Forest.

Heartening as it was to see Freddie Potts given his chance, Nuno’s decision to banish James Ward-Prowse looks a mistake; at the least, it denied West Ham the chance of salvation by set-piece; instead they keep conceding to them. Those at Southampton can testify to Ward-Prowse’s exemplary attitude in a relegation battle; some of those Nuno picks – Lucas Paqueta, say – can scarcely be described in such terms.

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And West Ham lack spirit. They did under Graham Potter and Julen Lopetegui, too. That reflects on West Ham’s remarkable ability to appoint uninspirational managers. Only David Moyes has seemed capable of harnessing the club’s potential.

Moyes could have left a platform for annual top-10 finishes: the Conference League trophy, regular European campaigns, annual victories against some of the English elite. West Ham had the advantage of being in London, of being in effect given a stadium, a nine-figure windfall from the sale of Declan Rice.

That seemingly promising position has been squandered by spectacular mismanagement; some in the boardroom, some in the transfer market.

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The Rice money was spent on the loaned-out Edson Alvarez, the overlooked Ward-Prowse, the unconvincing Konstantinos Mavropanos and Mohammed Kudus, sold to Tottenham as most of West Ham’s other players were unsellable. Niclas Fullkrug, a flagship arrival in 2024, has just been loaned out as well. Potter’s £20m goalkeeper, Mads Hermansen, was dropped in September and has not been seen since. Luis Guilherme, a £25m buy the year earlier, started two league games and left at the weekend.

Some £400m has been spent in two-and-a-half years but the squad is a mish-mash of players. If former director of football Tim Steidten comes out of it particularly badly, there are the fingerprints of Potter, Lopetegui, Moyes. Now Nuno, too, with strikers Pablo Felipe and Valentin Castellanos arriving and suggestions a defender, perhaps Charlie Cresswell, will follow.

Each will be charged with being a rescuer, with adding goals in attack and resilience at the back. Or maybe West Ham will turn to a new manager to extricate them from a perilous position. A concern is that, with no win in nine, with a lone point from the last five, things are getting worse, not better, under Nuno.

There is the abiding sense that West Ham saw none of this coming. Not their own results – if they had, they would have been better off sacking Potter last summer, rather than letting him limp into September or shape the squad - or others’ prowess. They seemed caught out by Leeds’ renaissance: built on the character, excellent management and defensive resolve that West Ham could do with. It has left it looking like West Ham against Forest for the last spot in the bottom three. And a club whose relegations tend to be embarrassing and avoidable are in pole position for another.