A West Ham United player has lifted the lid on the powerful message Nuno Espirito Santo used to fire up his squad before their vital victory over Newcastle.
Four managers have tried and until now failed to get this West Ham team motivated in the last 22 months.
Since January 2024 the Hammers have been in an alarming downward spiral.
Just 17 wins in 66 Premier League games in that time suggests that spiral was circling the plughole leading to the Championship.
After the malaise set in under David Moyes, Julen Lopetegui and Graham Potter both failed to inspire.
West Ham lacked motivation and inspiration for nearly two years
There were, quite literally, odd games here and there where West Ham produced enough to get a victory or two.
But nothing meaningful, nothing beyond false dawn after false dawn.
It is now Nuno Espirito Santo’s task to try and find the solutions and answers the others couldn’t.
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After an encouraging start with improved competitiveness against Everton and Arsenal, the abominations in defeat to Brentford and Leeds had Nuno feeling the heat already in east London.
There were even some reports the new Hammers head coach could already have given up on keeping West Ham in the Premier League and was actively seeking the sack by making a host of bizarre changes.
The Hammers board backed Nuno as the man to turn things around.
El Hadji Malick Diouf celebrates West Ham beating Newcastle United in the Premier League
Photo by Alex Pantling/Getty Images
Since then top club sources have leaked that Nuno is the man the West Ham owners want to build for the long-term.
It’s already becoming clear why.
West Ham went into the tough-looking home clash with Newcastle desperately needing to pull a rabbit out of the hat following a dismal start to the new season.
Nobody gave the Hammers a hope of a result.
But the match became a must-win with West Ham cut adrift in the bottom three and needing back-to-back victories to have any chance of climbing out.
When Jarrod Bowen hit the post after four minutes and Newcastle went straight up the other end to score, West Ham could have been forgiven for allowing heads to drop.
What Nuno pinned on dressing room wall to inspire West Ham win
Even more so when a penalty awarded for a foul on Bowen was overturned by VAR.
But there was something notably different about this West Ham performance.
Not once did heads drop, West Ham’s players stuck to their task and did not let the sucker punch goal phase them.
Lucas Paqueta scored a thunderbolt to get the Hammers back in it and a Sven Botman own goal after great work from Aaron Wan-Bissaka turned the match in their favour at the break.
West Ham thoroughly deserved the victory by the time Freddie Potts had seen a third goal chalked off by VAR due to the very tip of Tomas Soucek’s big toe being offside.
Nuno Espirito Santo celebrates during West Ham's win over Newcastle United
Photo by Kevin Hodgson/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Soucek made amends, though, bundling home a late third to seal a first home win for the Hammers since February.
Now a West Ham star has revealed what Nuno pinned on the dressing room wall to inspire the win over Newcastle.
There are clearly different ways for a manager to get a tune out of a team.
Carrot and stick, arm around the shoulder, tough love, hairdryer treatment or pushing team bonding, managers need a bit of everything to really get the best out of their players as individuals and a unit.
Now El Hadji Malick Diouf has lifted the lid on how Nuno set the tone for a rousing team performance to see off Newcastle 3-1 at the London Stadium.
Nuno paints a perfect picture of togetherness for Hammers
When the Hammers won the Europa Conference League under Moyes, it was revealed he had messages from the loved ones of every player played in the dressing room.
Now Diouf has revealed Nuno arranged to have pictures of every player as a young child pinned up on the West Ham dressing room wall for the clash with the Magpies.
Taking to his Instagram Stories, Diouf shared an image of the photo wall.
“Well done lads, plus three points,” Diouf said alongside the image, which you can see in the post below.
But how many of the West Ham stars do you recognise from their childhood pictures?
This is exactly the kind of thing West Ham have needed to bring a divided dressing room together.
And it clearly worked if the season-best performance vs Newcastle is anything to go by.
Long may it continue.