Slaven Bilic knew enough about West Ham United to realise that Graham Potter was probably a ‘dead man walking’ from the moment Sunderland took the lead in the Premier League’s opening weekend.
A simple cross into the box and an unmarked Eliezer Mayenda header. Two more goals would arrive before the end as Sunderland scored three times without reply during the final half-hour at a jubilant Stadium of Light.
Talk about starting as you mean to go on.
This would become a theme of West Ham United’s worst start to a league season in 52 years. A remarkable penchant for turning crosses and corners into gilt-edgedx chances for the opposition, and a tendency to concede a glut of goals in the blinking of an eye.
Full-blown calamities born out of set-backs.
When Max Kilman and Konstantinos Mavropanos failed to prevent Jean-Philippe Mateta from putting Crystal Palace ahead at the London Stadium – Graham Potter’s final match in charge – that took their tally of set-piece concessions to seven.
Flash forward to mid-November, and their that stands at a league-high nine in eleven games.
And though Nuno Espirito Santo has helped fix that ‘big problem’ to an extent – the more commanding Alphonse Areola playing a major role after replacing the slight, slender Mads Hermansen – former Hammers youngster-turned-co-commentator Matt Holland saw Kilman’s old failings return as Zian Flemming guided a simple header into the net last weekend.
Slaven Bilic, who spent two years in charge of West Ham himself from 2015 to 2017, puts Potter’s demise partly down to that extremely-well-publicised Achilles heel.
But, having emerged victorious in only five of his 20 matches in charge during the second half of last season, Bilic knew that Potter was done as soon as that disastrous form translated over into the current campaign.
Graham Potter after Nottingham Forest v West Ham United - Premier League
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Slaven Bilic explains Graham Potter’s West Ham United downfall
Speaking to talkSPORT, Slaven Bilic revealed he was ‘close’ to re-joining West Ham in September.
Vice-chair Karren Brady won a reported power struggle against David Sullivan, landing Nuno on a three-year contract.
Gracious in defeat, Bilic is backing Nuno to save the Hammers from the drop, having seen the 51-year-old do what Potter never managed by winning successive league matches at the London Stadium.
“The problem that Potter had was that [he struggled for results] at the beginning of this season but also the end of last season,” Bilic says. “So he entered this season with the problem not having much credit.
“The beginning was not good. They weren’t gelling as a team. They didn’t have enough up front, their defending, especially at set-plays, was very, very bad. And when you put all that together, it wasn’t easy from the beginning.
“I was at West Ham. Nowadays, the world of football is crazy. But they are a club where you enter into a crisis unbelievably quickly.
“They lost the first game against Sunderland, a newly-promoted team, and suddenly nothing is good! Crisis, crisis, crisis.
“Unfortunately for him, he was a dead man walking since basically the beginning of the season. This is absolutely not fair, but it is like that.”
Bilic believes Nuno Espirito Santo has the ‘quality’ needed to survive
After coming from behind to beat Newcastle and end Nuno’s wait for a first win at the fifth attempt, supersub Tomas Soucek broke Burnley hearts with a goal and an assist-of-sorts from the bench on Saturday.
“They are going in the right direction. There was always enough quality there,” Bilic adds, highlighting the evergreen Czech colossus as one of a handful of players who can make survival a reality.
“Especially in midfield and on the wings. Like Jarrod Bowen, he is a top player. They have Summerville, Paqueta, they have Soucek, they got Fernandes from Southampton. Good players. Really good players.
“I think once they click – and it is still early days for Nuno – and they got confidence and everything that comes with that, they are going to grow and they are going to be safe.”