You just know all is not well at a club when your own fans are singing "sacked in the morning" at you. That fate befell Nuno Espirito Santo as he cut a lone figure on the edge of the West Ham technical area deep into four added minutes at the end of Saturday's dismal 3-1 home defeat by West Brom. "You only need to write two things: 'West Ham are (bad) and he needs to go'," said one irate fan at the London Stadium as they filed out past the press tribunes.
The Hammers' Halloween horror - which saw the promotion favourites slip to eighth in the Championship table - was punctuated by heated boos at various points, both as the home side spurned chances and gave them up at the other end, while the manner of the three Albion goals were in the spirit of the season - no tricks, just treats. Asked if he felt his job was under pressure after the game, Nuno replied in bullish fashion: "I am always under pressure. Every day." The Portuguese does cut a frustrated figure these days.
Perhaps understandably, because although he is the one picking the players, he is not the one failing to close down the opposition or allowing them to cross. He is not losing his man in the box, he is not fluffing a clearing kick underneath his own crossbar, presenting a chance to the opposition to seal the points. And West Brom were the third visitors in all competitions to have left the London Stadium victorious in the past four games.
Hammers' home horrors continue as Albion march on On the record, of course, Nuno, projected unity. "All of us are really frustrated," he said. "There's a lot of explanations - the basics are we didn't play good, we conceded too easy." All the talk before and after the game was about West Ham's astonishing record of now having fallen behind in 10 of their 16 games in all competitions this season.
Albion's opener was the fourth goal they have conceded in the opening 20 minutes across their past three home league games. They have not managed one of their own in that spell. Nuno held a meeting with the players about this very topic in the run-up to the game, yet it made no difference.
Despite winning a corner inside 16 seconds, from which Mohamadou Kante hooked a bouncing ball over the bar, they could not get any momentum going. Arguably the three classiest players on the pitch - with due respect to Jarrod Bowen, who showed his in flashes - were West Brom's Isaac Price, Jimmy-Jay Morgan and Felix Horn Myhre, who combined to give the hosts another mountain to climb. "It's very concerning we are conceding the first goal on a regular basis," Nuno said.
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