Tuesday’s 2-1 home defeat to Nottingham Forest meant West Ham are now winless in 10 games and seven points from safety. Is there any way the Hammers can ignite a spark to survive relegation from the Premier League?
When David Moyes left West Ham United for a second time following the expiration of his contract at the end of 2023-24, the hope was the club could use the relative success under the Scottish manager as a springboard for even more glory in east London.
Moyes led the club to a top-nine finish in three of his four full seasons with the Hammers following his return, even securing their best-ever Premier League points tally in 2020-21 (65) en route to a sixth-place finish. In the only disappointing league season of Moyes’ second spell as head coach, in which they finished 14th, he secured West Ham’s second-ever major European trophy with UEFA Conference League glory.
Many were accepting of Moyes being allowed to leave, but some fans were sceptical that change was necessarily a good thing at London Stadium. Could it really get much better for them under someone else?
Julen Lopetegui was selected as the man to do just that, but he wasn’t a popular choice from the start.
Moyes had arguably underachieved towards the end of his reign, and there was frustration with a brand of football largely deemed unimaginative. Much of the fanbase wanted a new manager who’d bring vibrant, attacking football to the London Stadium. What they got was a coach who’d never been associated with such ideals.
After just 20 league games in charge, Lopetegui was swiftly replaced by Graham Potter, who had successfully implemented a rapid change in playing style at Brighton in 2019-20 after replacing Chris Hughton. However, he had both a pre-season and the backing of by clever, data-savvy bosses at the Seagulls; that wasn’t the case at West Ham.
Unsurprisingly, the Potter project also failed. Averaging just one point per game in the Premier League, the only manager to perform worse at the club in the competition had been Avram Grant (0.89). Until now.
Nuno Espírito Santo rebuilt his reputation as a Premier League manager with a fantastic spell at Nottingham Forest. First, he helped the club avoid relegation in 2023-24 after taking over in late December; but more impressively, he turned Forest into top-four contenders with a counter-attacking brand of football last season. They eventually fell away to finish seventh but only missed out on Champions League qualification by a point.
Nuno’s relationship with Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis and “global head of football” Edu soured over the summer, and following a 3-0 home defeat to West Ham in late August, he was dismissed as their manager. Just 18 days after his sacking, he was named Hammers boss, but in doing so he walked into more chaos.
Plagued by off-field issues and continued supporter unrest, his time at West Ham has been abysmal. Ironically, after the latest meeting between Forest and West Ham, which his old side prevailed 2-1 thanks to a late Morgan Gibbs-White penalty, Nuno could be on the verge of becoming the first manager to be sacked twice in the same Premier League season.
Should he leave this month, he’ll break Lopetegui’s record of the fewest games managed (in all competitions) by any permanent West Ham manager (currently 16, six fewer than the Spanish coach).
He’s won just two of those 16 matches, the back-to-back victories over Newcastle and Burnley at home in early November. The last two defeats have been particularly embarrassing, losing to two of his former clubs: Wolves, arguably the worst Premier League team of all time, and this week’s loss to Forest, who are struggling themselves.
West Ham have been in the Premier League for 14 successive seasons since 2012-13, but that sequence is under severe threat following a 10-game winless run in the competition. That’s now their longest streak without a win in the Premier League since between December 2006 and March 2007 (11 games).
Their latest defeat leaves them seven points adrift of safety with 17 games to go. They should be worried.
Before this season, 18 teams have been 7+ points from safety after 21 Premier League games and none of those sides have stayed up. Similarly, there have been 27 previous instances of a team having 14 (or fewer) points after 21 games of a Premier League campaign – 25 were relegated, with only these two surviving: Southampton in 1993-94 (14 points from 21 games) and West Bromwich Albion in 2004-05 (12 points from 21 games).
Player recruitment has been a glaring issue for West Ham since Moyes left, with 12 different players brought into the club for reported fees of at least £15 million, but only Aaron Wan-Bissaka so far looks like a success from that group of expensive signings.
Promising winger Luis Guilherme arrived from Palmeiras in June 2024 for over £25m, but his acquisition proved a major miscalculation. He played just 260 Premier League minutes before being sold to Sporting CP earlier this month.
Niclas Füllkrug cost even more despite being 31 years old at the time, and he’s since been sent to Milan on loan after just three goals in 26 league games for West Ham.
Crysencio Summerville cost a reported £25m but has been involved in just three goals (one goal, two assists) in 35 Premier League appearances since signing from Leeds United.
Centre-back Max Kilman has featured in 56 of West Ham’s league games since the start of 2024-25, meaning the £40m signing has played a considerable role in the second-worst-performing Premier League defence over that period. Only former club Wolves have conceded more than the Hammers (105 goals) in that time.
El Hadji Malick Diouf has shown promise since signing in the summer from Slavia Prague before departing with Wan-Bissaka for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, but it is still early days for him.
West Ham’s confusing recruitment was then highlighted yet again earlier this week when news broke that the club were apparently in talks to cancel Callum Wilson’s contract after only signing him in August.
But despite such an overwhelming sense of negativity, there are some positive aspects for Hammers’ supporters to cling on to in the second half of the season.
Jarrod Bowen’s undoubted qualities could provide the spark West Ham need to get out of trouble. The fear is that he quite often ploughs a lone furrow, providing 28 Premier League goals and assists since Moyes departed – 16 more than the next best, Tomás Soucek (12).
Lucas Paquetá is another player who is clearly better than the level he’s currently performing at, and should he find some much-needed form, the Brazilian can help drag West Ham out of trouble. He is the Hammers’ leading chance creator in open play since the start of 2024-25 (53).
Mateus Fernandes was an expensive signing this summer but is starting to put in some promising performances following his move from Southampton. He leads the West Ham squad for Premier League open-play chances created this season (20).
Meanwhile, the eventual return of both full-backs from AFCON, Wan-Bissaka and Diouf, should give the club both more security at the back and threat out wide.
Considering the overall lack of success for West Ham’s incomings in recent years, it would perhaps be foolish to expect miracles from two new attacking players who have already arrived in January. But nonetheless, Pablo and Taty Castellanos provide two new hopeful goal threats in the squad.
Signed for a combined total of nearly £50m, both players have been regular goalscorers in European top flights since the start of last season, but they’ll need to hit the ground running to save the Hammers from relegation.
Castellanos scored more times (16) and was involved in more goals (24) in all competitions for Lazio than any other player since August 2024, while only 14 players have more goal involvements in Serie A since 2024-25 than him (18).
Pablo, although expensive, represents more of a gamble for the London club. The 22-year-old has played just 61 top-flight league games, scoring 17 times, all in Portugal’s Primeira Liga.
Portugal-to-England is a well-trodden path by top-flight footballers, but many have struggled to convert their form in front of goal to the Premier League after prior success in the Portuguese top division.
Pablo comes to West Ham lacking some match fitness, but after a short-term injury kept him out of action for over a month, he scored in his final two league appearances for the Portuguese club, taking his Primeira Liga tally to 10 for 2025-26.
Since the start of April, that goal tally is 14 in 22 games; he is averaging a goal every 100 minutes in league competition – only three players scored more in the Portuguese top flight over that time.
West Ham will hope both forwards can score goals straight away, with important London derbies against Tottenham and Chelsea either side of a home meeting with Sunderland to come in January.
Relegation from the Premier League for a third time is a serious possibility now, with the Opta supercomputer projecting an 89.1% chance of that occurring following their latest defeat. It remains to be seen if Nuno will be given the opportunity to guide them away from danger.
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West Ham’s Survival Hopes Going South, But Nuno’s Men Aren’t Completely Without Hope in Relegation Battle Opta Analyst.
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