Nuno Espirito Santo has been sacked by West Ham after a difficult start to the season.
The Championship promotion favourites are eighth, so far struggling to live up to their billing after being relegated from the Premier League last season.
The former Tottenham, Wolves and Nottingham Forest manager, 52, signed a three-year contract in September 2025 but failed to stop West Ham from crashing out of the top flight after a poor start to the season.
West Ham were expected to start strongly in the second tier, but Saturday’s 3-1 home thumping by West Bromwich Albion left them with just six wins in 13 matches.
In a club statement on Tuesday morning, the Hammers said: ‘West Ham United can confirm that men’s first-team Head Coach Nuno Espírito Santo has left his position with immediate effect.
‘Following a thorough review of the start to the EFL Championship season, the Board of Directors believe that a change is necessary at this time in order to ensure that the Club’s objectives and expectations remain on track.
Nuno Espirito Santo has been sacked by West Ham with the club eighth in the Championship
‘Assistant Head Coach Rui Pedro Silva and Goalkeeper Coach Rui Barbosa have also departed.
‘West Ham United would like to thank Nuno, Rui and Rui for their hard work and commitment during their time at the Club, and wish them all the very best for the future.
‘The process of recruiting a new Head Coach is already underway.’
The club added that Mark Noble, Steve Potts and Gerard Prenderville will take temporary charge of the team ahead of Wednesday’s trip to Cardiff City.
Many had expected Nuno to depart in the aftermath of relegation – and Daily Mail Sport understands that Hammers co-owner David Sullivan wanted to part ways with the Portuguese coach – but Daniel Kretinsky, who is now the club’s largest shareholder, backed him to lead the club’s promotion charge.
After that decision, the club released a statement outlining their plans and revealed that Nuno was ‘highly motivated’ for the challenge ahead.
Despite the high-profile sales of Mateus Fernandes and Crysencio Summerville in the aftermath of relegation, the Hammers kept the likes of Jarrod Bowen, Tomas Soucek, Taty Castellanos and Konstantinos Mavropanos.
They also invested heavily in the squad, which included the addition of Arne Engels from Celtic for a Championship record fee of £22million.
But despite 6-0 victories over Wrexham and Lincoln City, the Hammers have struggled for consistency, and back-to-back defeats by Southampton and West Brom in recent weeks proved to be the final straw.
During and after the defeat by the Baggies, home fans at the London Stadium turned on Nuno and subjected him to chants of ‘sacked in the morning’.
Speaking to the media afterwards, Nuno outlined his desire to turn things around.
‘Every day there is pressure,’ he said. ‘I’m disappointed because we wanted to improve things. We want to win matches.
‘This (the chants) is the reality. You can only change this if we win games. That’s the solution: getting better results. We have to go back to good performances.
‘We dropped points against Burnley (in the season opener), we lost (at home) to Charlton, Southampton and West Brom. The only solution is to improve our game. When we do that, our fans are going to stick with us. They’re going to support us.’
More to follow.
