Nuno Espirito Santo facing West Ham sack after Forest inflict ultimate insult | Football | Sport

West Ham‘s late 2-1 defeat to Nottingham Forest at the London Stadium looks set to cost Nuno Espirito Santo his job after a late penalty allowed the visitors to snatch all three points. A foul by goalkeeper Alphonse Areola at a free-kick, when he smashed Morgan Gibbs-White in the face, allowed the Forest captain to step up and score the winner. Victory means 17th-placed Forest move seven points clear of the Hammers in 18th. West Ham have now gone 10 games without a win since they beat fellow Premier League strugglers Burnley on November 8.

After a VAR check, Tony Harrington announced to the crowd: “After review, the goalkeeper fouls Nottingham Forest No.10. My final decision is penalty kick.” Nuno was filmed with his head in his hands on the bench before Gibbs-White beat Areola by going straight down the middle. The defeat leaves West Ham needing a massive turnaround in fortunes to survive relegation this season, and their battle to avoid the drop appears likely to be overseen by a third different manager of the campaign after Graham Potter and Nuno.

This loss is the ultimate insult for the Portuguese head coach given he was also axed by Forest back in September after his relationship with the club’s owner Evangelos Marinakis deteriorated. Forest now look to have got him axed from a second club of the campaign just 101 days after he was hired by West Ham.

Sean Dyche’s Forest came from a goal behind to win in east London. A Murillo own goal gave home team West Ham the lead until Nicolas Dominquez made it 1-1 just moments after a Crysencio Summerville strike was chalked off for offside. Gibbs-White scored from the spot with just one minute of normal time remaining and the full-time whistle was greeted by boos and a half-empty stadium.

And it means Nuno may now lose his job with West Ham on just 14 points from 21 games. The 51-year-old coach has only won two of his 16 matches in charge, drawing five and losing nine. That gives him a win percentage of less than 15 per cent. 

Among those defeats was an embarrassing 3-0 defeat at Wolves, another of Nuno’s former clubs, last Saturday. Wolves were winless in 19 Premier League matches and had only three points before West Ham’s visit to Molineux.

Nuno said after the Wolves loss: “I have to apologise to the fans, I have to apologise. We have to apologise to the fans, those that travelled today, it was embarrassing. There’s not much I can say other than we are sorry, we are sorry, because what we showed today was not good enough.

“We needed much more from our players. The way we started and the way we performed was very poor, it was embarrassing because I don’t recall one day that I felt so bad on a football pitch like today.

“It was a failure of many things, mistakes and not reacting to those mistakes, making mistakes and then a second mistake and over and over again not being able to control and create any situation of danger. I think we didn’t achieve one shot on goal, so that says a lot.”