Unless Nuno Espirito Santo can stop the rot and fast, West Ham United and Stoke City could be changing divisions come May. From the Premier League to the Championship, and vice versa.
As recently as 2023, West Ham were beating Fiorentina in the Europa Conference League final. The Potters, meanwhile, had just limped to a miserable 16th place finish in England’s second tier.
Two and a half years later, there are now only three steps separating West Ham United from Stoke City in the proverbial ladder.
As Nuno Espirito Santo ‘lost the plot’ on his London Stadium debut – Brentford eased past an abysmal Hammers outfit – the 2024 Europa League quarter-finalists were consigned to their worst start to season since their manager was celebrating his 15th birthday.
Nuno is 51 now, by the way.
‘Sleepwalking towards relegation’ is a sentence many have used to describe a club operating like a life raft riddled with leaks.
And while it is early days – Stoke have seen many a false dawn in recent times – the flying start made by Mark Robins’ Potters in the division below means that Sorba Thomas may soon be laughing last and loudest.
Sorba Thomas fires Stoke City into play-offs as West Ham United toil
In an interview conducted with the BBC a couple of years ago, Sorba Thomas described his release by West Ham as a teenager as a ‘smack in the face’.
By his own admission, he ‘fell out of love with the game’, dropping all the way down to non-league with Boreham Wood.
A decade later, while West Ham felt that Thomas ‘wasn’t good enough’ at the time, Stoke’s number seven is now performing like a man more than ‘good enough’ to ascend out of the Championship and really show his old side what they are missing.
An admittedly rather fortunate goal in Stoke’s 1-0 win over Wrexham on Saturday means Thomas has eight goal contributions from 10 league matches since returning to England on a permanent basis from Nantes.
Only Hull City striker Oli McBurnie and Coventry’s Brandon Thomas-Asante have more to their name.
“Now, I am always quite dismissive of goals that are crosses,” EFL expert Ali Maxwell told the Not the Top 20 podcast after watching the Welsh wizard’s whipped delivery sail into the Wrexham net.
“But I think it’s worth pointing out that he is easily the Championship player most likely to score a cross, because his crosses are absolutely deadly. And especially now he is playing on the left, with his crosses curling towards the goal.
“Sorba Thomas, regardless of whether he meant that goal, he has been among the best players in the league this season. [He is] among the most goal contributions, particularly for a team that has got a good defence but isn’t exactly cutting loose going forward. Incredibly valuable contributions as well.
“But what is the best ability? Availability.”
Ali Maxwell hails Thomas’ availability as Divin Mubama helps Potters push
Thomas is the only forward in the division to play at least 900 minutes so far in 2025/26.
“[Availability is] the most underrated ability for attacking players, by miles in my opinion. It shows physical capacity, consistency, and that you are going to be able to do your good attacking things as much as possible,” Maxwell adds.
“A lot of good attacking players, you have a look and actually they are being dragged after 62 minutes because they are blowing a gasket. Not Sorba Thomas. He has started all ten games. He’s been subbed off only once and that was in injury time.
“It sounds stupid to say but, to me, those are astounding numbers and shows how complete he is physically. He just looks like a completely new player compared to when we last saw him at this level, and it is so exciting.”
Sorba Thomas and Divin Mubama flew out the blocks as Stoke won their first three matches of the new campaign. And though the goals have dried up recently for the Potters’ on loan centre-forward, one-time West Ham starlet Mubama is pleased to form one-half of Robins’ claret-and-blue tinged frontline.
“We have mutual friends, so I knew [Thomas] was about to make this move,” Mubama told the Stoke Sentinel a few weeks ago. “It’s good when you know someone, and he’s from East London as well.
“Sorba was on the books at West Ham too but he’s six years older than me isn’t he? We’ve got a good relationship on and off the pitch.”
