Real reason West Ham want to keep Nuno Espirito Santo if relegated revealed

Nuno faced similar criticism over his approach to West Ham’s recent 0-0 draw at a distracted, disinterested and under-strength Crystal Palace side.

The results – and a host of others that spring to mind under Nuno – look like costing West Ham their Premier League lives.

Real reason West Ham owners are ‘happy’ to keep Nuno in Championship

As West Ham’s sluggish players went down with a whimper against the Bees, Spurs and Nottingham Forest have won at Aston Villa and Chelsea respectively while Leeds beat Burnley.

It means West Ham are now a point behind Spurs with three games to play. Although it is effectively two points given Tottenham’s superior goal difference.

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Spurs host Leeds at home next while West Ham welcome Arsenal.

The harsh reality is the Hammers could find themselves effectively needing to win against both Newcastle and Leeds in the final matches of the season – and hope Spurs fail to get anything against Chelsea and Everton – to have a chance of staying up.

With relegation now looking highly probable, attention has turned to the future of Nuno.

While the Portuguese has done a decent job to turn the team around since January, he took far too long to get a response in the wasted months since his appointment in September.

There was also some friction between West Ham’s owners and the manager over transfers in January.

Nuno pushed to sign Valentin Castellanos and Pablo at a total cost of £47m, which does not look like money well spent given their woeful goal return.

Hammers cannot afford to pay off yet another manager

Nuno also insisted on signing Adama Traore and has barely used him since.

West Ham handed Nuno a three-year deal when he replaced the hapless Graham Potter.

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As reported on several occasions since his arrival, Hammers News understands Nuno will walk away if West Ham are relegated to the Championship.

The expectation would be that the Hammers board would not want to keep him either as he has failed in his primary task of keeping the club in the top flight.

So there was some surprise on Monday when, 48 hours after the woeful Brentford loss, The Telegraph claimed West Ham’s owners are ‘happy’ with Nuno and want him to continue in the Championship.

However, that is not entirely accurate according to senior West Ham sources speaking to Hammers News.

The real reason West Ham want to keep Nuno if relegated has been revealed – and it sums up the club’s decline over the last few years.

There was no mention of payoffs for Julen Lopetegui or Potter when West Ham filed their accounts showing club record £104m losses at the end of February.

That indicated both remain on West Ham’s payroll – alongside Nuno – in an example of the staggering cost of firing failed managers.

It means West Ham have three managers currently on the payroll and Hammers News understands that is costing the club around £10.5m per season or £875k a month.

The Hammers will stop paying Lopetegui in June but still have to pay Potter until June 2027.

And therein lies the real reason West Ham are “happy” to keep Nuno even if they are relegated.

Because the Hammers simply cannot afford to pay off yet another manager, especially one who has nearly two-and-a-half years to run on his contract.

Nursing £104m losses, West Ham are expected to make further big losses of well over £80m in their next accounts.

Throw in the fact the Hammers still owe £196m to other clubs for transfer instalments and the financial disaster that comes with falling off the Premier League gravy train and West Ham are in no position to be paying off another manager to bring in someone new.

So West Ham’s decision to keep Nuno on next season would be predominantly motivated by money rather than sporting ambition or whoever is best for the job of getting the club back to the big time.