Considering how much their results and performances have improved since he arrived, many West Ham United supporters may highlight the hiring of Paco Jemez as the ‘turning point’ in their season.
It is five weeks now since the Hammers appointed a man both Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique adore.
In that time, West Ham United have won four of six matches in all competitions. Only a last-gasp Benjamin Sesko equaliser stopped that from being five in six. A team who were seven points adrift of Nottingham Forest when Paco Jemez reunited with his old Deportivo la Coruna teammate Nuno Espirito Santo can now climb above Forest into 17th with a win at home to Bournemouth tomorrow.
Now, captain Jarrod Bowen feels that QPR win sparked this revival in the FA Cup third round.
Jemez, who put pen to paper only a few days after Taty Castellanos’ extra-time header, believes things really took a turn for the better when Callum Wilson scrambled in a stoppage time winner at Tottenham on January 17th.
Speaking of Tottenham, West Ham will end the weekend two points behind their bitter rivals should they beat Bournemouth and Spurs lose in the North London Derby against Arsenal.
“I think the turning point was the victory against Tottenham,” Jemez tells the club’s official website. That, coincidence or not, was his first game alongside Nuno in the dugout.
“That victory put some wind in our sails and cheered us up. And from then on, everything has been improving.”
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West Ham had gone ten games without a win before making the short trip to North London. A few days before Wilson’s heroics, the Hammers had suffered a devastating home defeat by Nottingham Forest. A result even some glass-half-full supporters presumed would spell an inevitable relegation.
Nuno felt Paco Jemez would bring new ‘ideas’ and a different energy behind the scenes. He was right.
“It has been a team effort but, sometimes, it’s helpful having someone come in from the outside, who hasn’t been affected by the hardships the group has gone through,” Jemez adds. “I came in fresh, with bags of energy and a different point of view.
“When you come from the outside and you come with all that enthusiasm and excitement, that ultimately rubs off on others. But I think the key was the good game we played against Tottenham. I think that was the step that made us see that we could do better.
“It’s like the other day, for example, we lost two points against Manchester United, but it didn’t hurt us. The atmosphere is just as good. And that’s because we know that’s just how football works sometimes.
“The important part is the whole process, the bigger picture. Each game we have been building, we’ve been growing. The results have encouraged us, they’ve made us happy. But the players are now starting to see that the result depends on them. It’s not a matter of chance, of going out there and seeing what happens, no.
“Now we have the tools we need to say, ‘we’re going out there and we know what we have to do to win the match’. Seeing ourselves getting closer and closer to other teams, that’s a great source of encouragement.”
Despite his reputation for being an attack-minded, possession-orientated coach – Guardiola loved the way his Rayo Vallecano side would outplay even the likes of Barcelona in the 2010s – Jemez has made a marked improvement to West Ham’s defence.
At least, that is what both Ollie Scarles and Konstantinos Mavropanos have said.
Ironically, Jemez was briefly linked with the Nottingham Forest job
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