West Ham lost 2-1 to Nottingham Forest at the London Stadium in the final stages, and Nuno Espirito Santo is likely to lose his job as manager after losing all three points with a late penalty kick. During a free-kick, goalkeeper Alphonse Arreola was fouled when he hit Morgan Gibbs-White in the face, allowing the Forest captain to come forward and score the winning goal. With this win, 17th-placed Forest now have a seven-point lead over the 18th-placed Hammers. West Ham are now winless in 10 games since beating fellow Premier League side struggling Burnley on November 8th.
After a VAR check, Tony Harrington declared to the crowd: “After checking, the goalkeeper has fouled Nottingham Forest’s number 10. My final decision is a penalty.” Nuno was photographed on the bench holding his head in his hands before Gibbs-White beat Arreola with a long-range shot. The defeat means West Ham will need a major turnaround in their fortunes to stay out of the relegation zone this season, with their fight to avoid relegation likely to be overseen by a third different manager after Graham Potter and Nuno.
The defeat is the ultimate insult for the Portuguese head coach, given that he was sacked by Forest in September following a souring relationship with the club’s owner Evangelos Marinakis. Manager Forest now appears to have sacked him from his second club this season, just 101 days after being hired by West Ham.
In East London, Sean Dyche’s Forest came from behind to win on goal difference. Murillo’s own goal put the home side West Ham ahead, but Nicolas Dominquez made it 1-1 shortly after Crisencio Somerville’s shot was chalked off for offside. Gibbs-White converted a penalty with just one minute left in normal time, and the final whistle was greeted by boos and a half-empty stadium.
And that means Nuno could lose his job at West Ham after scoring just 14 goals in 21 games. The 51-year-old manager has won just two of the 16 games he has played in charge, drawn five and lost nine. This puts his win rate at less than 15%.
Among those losses was an embarrassing 3-0 loss to Nuno’s other former club Wolves last Saturday. Wolves were without a win in 19 Premier League games and had only three points before West Ham’s visit to Molineux.
After Wolves’ defeat, Nuno said: “I have to apologize to the fans, I have to apologize. I have to apologize to the fans and the fans who traveled today. It was embarrassing. There’s not much I can say other than I’m sorry, I’m sorry, because what we showed today wasn’t good enough.”
“We needed more from our players. The way we started and the way we performed was very poor. I don’t remember a day when I felt so bad on a football pitch like today, so it was embarrassing.”
“There were a lot of things that went wrong. We made a mistake and didn’t react to that mistake, we made a mistake and then we made another mistake, we lost control and created dangerous situations. I don’t think we got a single shot on goal. That says a lot.”
