Let’s be honest. Nuno Espirito Sancho should have been sacked in the tunnel at Molineux on 3 January. West Ham have a history of that sort of behaviour, but never was it needed more.
The travelling Irons fans had just witnessed the worst performance by a West Ham side I can remember, and I go back a seriously long way with this club.
Wolves, bottom and useless, had just beaten us 3-0 and everything about West Ham that night was a disaster. The tactics, the application, the team plan, the desire (or lack of) and the dismal display of a Head Coach on the touchline.
He looked divorced from the action. And should have been. That was the end of a nine-match winless run that had harvested a pitiful four points from 27. We were going down. An acquaintance of mine became a TV star for a few minutes when Sky filmed him venting his anger and disgust in the aftermath of the debacle. I totally understood.
It seems that our soon-to-be-fractured hierarchy considered the axe, but decided against it. They had the chance there to reset the season and do something proactive to save our skins. They decided not to. Was it finance, or lack of alternatives?
But they must have known of the disquiet in the dressing room over Nuno’s decision making, tactics and general demeanour around Rush Green. Much of which has been exposed in articles this week from respected, informed journalists.
Spurs, our partners in crime at the foot of the Premier League, stared into the abyss and did something, if not as successful initially. They sacked Thomas Frank, then got rid of interim manager Igor Tudor very swiftly and appointed the experienced - if sometimes erratic - Roberto De Zerbi on a five-year contract costing about £5m.
That sorted it. We did nothing. Nuno should have been history, but David Sullivan would never put his hand in his pocket to buy a new manager. Even Nuno was unemployed when he replaced Graham Potter back in September, having fallen out with the dodgy owner of Nottingham Forest, something to do with being too defensive when Champions League qualification was within their grasp. Doesn’t time fly.
Sunday was a horrible, if totally predictable experience. It had been coming for weeks, despite the occasional upturn, never maintained. It looks like Nuno will be gone within days, a long debrief on Monday did not produce the obvious tin-tac, but the clause to sack him if relegation occurred is too much for Sullivan to let slip through his hands.
All in all, with this horror season finally put to rest for West Ham fans, I want to see the back of Nuno and the whole experience of being shackled to the Jorge Mendes circus. I was amazed Sullivan even tolerated that from the start.
Our current owner just loves the power and running the transfers in and out. Mendes was a giant super agent who put a stop to that. I give you Adama Traore (not one league start and injured), Pablo Felipe (grossly over-priced and with no goals 17 games) and then Taty Castellanos. Marginally better I give you, seven goals in 22 games, but still not what many feel is a genuine Premier League player.
All these deals came via the Mendes machine. When Nuno goes that will end any meaningful involvement of Mendes in our club. But he will mastermind the transfer of Mateus Fernandes to who knows where. The Portuguese agent had no intention of leaving his young star in the Championship at Southampton, did he?
While our demise has unfolded, backstage our owners, board member and assorted hangers on have been shuffling shares around, seeing the back of Karren Brady, Nathan Thompson (commercial director), Tara Warren and the retirement of finance director Andy Mollett. If anyone deserves to have a long break it must be him!
And all this has thrown up the greater involvement of Sullivan’s young sons, Jack and David Jnr. Minor directors maybe, but seemingly the heirs apparent. We hear they are taking a bigger role in day-to-day stuff, what qualifications they have for running a once-Premier League club is hard to see.
Their business knowledge has been learnt at the knee of their father (four relegations now from the Premier League) and a close-up look at how a football club should not be run.
Pay Day Loan United FC. Over £100m in debt, owing close on £200m in transfer fees, a potential £80m loss upcoming and the ability to be the sixth highest spenders on transfer in the top flight, and still cock things up. It’s not what you buy but who you buy.
Now we had a cobbled-together team and squad that sees fans checking on Travel Lodges near Lincoln, Barnsley and Stoke. That’s how to run a football club, lads.
It’s not usually for me to call for a manager's head. But where does the blame and responsibility lay for the season we have endured? I have to admit, peering down from the gods of Newcastle’s away end, where you have a better view of Gateshead and the hills above the Tyne than you do the players on the pitch below, I finally gave up on Nuno.
I was being told he’s an elite manager, but I’ve never warmed to him or seen what the fuss is all about. He’s had six jobs in nine years: Wolves, Spurs, Nottingham Forest and West Ham plus short spells at Valencia and Saudi with Al Itthad in that time. That’s an awful lot: Spurs, Forest and us in just four years.
He’s been in charge of us for 33 league games and won eight. There was a terrible spell before Christmas of ten games without a win. In our run-in, he’s won four of 13 and lost three on the bounce at the end when we were desperate and Spurs could have been left floundering. To play so defensively against a weakened, distracted, Crystal Palace was a disgrace.
That’s not good enough. We can moan about VAR and the seven mistakes they admit to, the two penalties that should have been awarded at Brentford and the shambles of Callum Wilson’s ‘equaliser’ against an Arsenal side being pushed to the title by all-measure of corruption.
There have been others, the poor refereeing for the Nottingham Forest home loss. But we threw away two goal leads at Chelsea, Brighton and Bournemouth because we couldn’t see out games.
And there’s been more. Suggestions now that he didn’t want the academy coaches that were baked into his staff because for some reason we couldn’t or didn’t, employ his own coaching staff. He looked at times like he was sulking. He tinkered with tactics and systems, daft experiments.
And he fell out with several players, although I don’t count Jean-Clair Todibo, who has an ago far ahead of his talent and has fallen out with three managers in a season and could clearly have a row in an empty room.
Nuno has to take responsibility for the mess we were in. I doubt any other manager would have survived long with that record. I find it odd that David Moyes was hounded out for playing a low bloc and counter-attack, which is what Nuno plays too often. Fans hated Moyes because he was defensive, but Nuno seemed to get a free pass.
There is a long list of tactical issues that have cost us games. It seems he didn’t want the job in the first place and took a lot of persuasion to get him through the door. And that also meant his super agent Jorge Mendes. Frankly I’d like us to be rid of the Mendes involvement completely.
You get Nuno, you get Mendes. Yes, we also had Fernandes, who we snatched away from Southampton. But we already know he’ll be the first out of the door in the summer, with a move to Manchester United seems a forgone conclusion. Their captain Bruno Fernandez is a Portugal team mate of Matty and another Mendes client.
You saw at first hand the Mendes influence at Wolves when Nuno was in charge there. A string of players arrived and many were shifted on quickly. There were a few clubs in the Championship who felt Mendes' involvement influenced the market, I recall Steve Bruce moaning about relatively low wages and transfer fees for Champions League quality players.
Wolves' local media used to joke that Mendes had an office at the training ground. Not true, but it felt sometimes that he was an unofficial director of football. Also not true because agents are forbidden to hold positions at clubs, but his influence was felt in every window.
Wolves got promotion under Nuno and qualified for Europe, but the relationship with the board and budget issues saw a parting of the ways. His next move to Spurs lasted only a few months before he was sacked. Style of football was an issue.
Nottingham Forest came next until he fell out with the owner on the brink of possible Champions League qualification. And here he is, still at West Ham. Fans are split, some see him as a galvanising figure who has united the dressing room, while others see a string of strange selections and tactical issues that have contributed to our downfall. Culminating with the disaster at Newcastle.
I have no real issue with Scott Parker, he’s taken three clubs up from the Championship. Let’s not worry too much about what might happen then. Getting back straight away with the parachute payments is crucial.
We are in a big enough financial mess to cause worries about PSR in the Championship. We need to shift the expensive PL players as quick as possible and then reset. But not with Nuno.
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