Nuno Espirito Santo has three key areas to work on at West Ham United heading into the international break.
Clearly, the fact that much of the West Ham United squad has been called up for international duty complicates matters.
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David Sullivan takes in a West Ham match from the directors' box
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Still, the stakes are incredibly high in the final seven games of the season as Nuno fights to keep the Irons in the Premier League.
No matter how small the group of players left working at Rush Green actually is, the Hammers boss needs to find answers to some big problems.
Here, Hammers News lists three of them.
Defending from set-pieces
In a Premier League season dominated by the use of set-pieces, West Ham are among the worst at defending them.
In fact, no one has conceded more goals from set-pieces this season than West Ham (17).
That simply has to change and though Nuno won’t be working with a full squad over the break, he and his coaching staff desperately need to come up with some kind of plan to improve.
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Giving Taty Castellanos confidence
The goals scored have dried up in recent weeks, too.
West Ham haven’t scored more than once in the Premier League since late February and they need more from Taty Castellanos.
Nuno Espirito Santo shakes hands with Taty Castellanos after substituting him during West Ham United's Premier League game with Manchester United.
Photo by Kevin Hodgson/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Castellanos is struggling at West Ham and with the striker staying put over the international break, Nuno needs to coax some improvements out of him.
Managing Crysencio Summerville’s fitness
It is not too much to suggest that West Ham’s survival hopes rest on Crysencio Summerville’s fitness.
Summerville’s return date from a calf injury is unclear but there was hope he would have been called up for the Netherlands squad, so perhaps that suggests the issue isn’t too serious.
They need to get him up to speed as quickly as possible, and perhaps not play him against Leeds in the FA Cup when domestic football returns even if he is fit.
That would be a big call but Premier League safety could depend on it.
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