The debate which raged between Martin Keown and Martin O’Neill, in the aftermath of West Ham United’s 2-1 defeat at Leeds on Friday night, was one that would have been replicated in pubs, bars and homes all throughout East London.
How much of the blame should be apportioned to Nuno Espirito Santo? Or are West Ham United’s seemingly never-ending struggles simply reflective of a poor squad of players?
Tim Sherwood last week suggested that even Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp would fail to get a tune out of this current claret and blue crop, and this is the side of the fence former Celtic, Aston Villa and Republic of Ireland manager Martin O’Neill falls on.
A coach defending a coach, nothing new there then.
Iconic Arsenal centre-back Martin Keown, though, feels that failing to ask questions of the man in charge is a dereliction of duty. Nuno’s team selection has bordered on the inexplicable, after all.
Against Leeds, a newly-promoted but vastly superior Leeds outfit, the Hammers boss still had Jarrod Bowen, Crysencio Summerville, El Hadji Malick Diouf, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Brazil’s number ten Lucas Paqueta at his disposal, but struggled to get a tune out of any of them.
Well, except the always excellent Bowen of course. It was the captain who assisted that 90th minute consolation in West Yorkshire as Mateus Fernandes opened his West Ham account with the first headed goal of his senior career.
Martin Keown and Martin O’Neill clash over Nuno Espirito Santo’s West Ham United
Speaking on talkSPORT, shortly before he was parachuted in at Celtic following Brendan Rodgers’ sudden resignation, O’Neill argues that there is a limit to what can be expected from Nuno without further investment.
“I fear for the football club,” O’Neill says. “Primarily because they are not very good. It’s a struggle for them. It has been all season. I don’t think the recruitment has been great. I think there are too many players not up to playing in this league.
“The group of players is not good. Obviously, every manager that steps into a job wants to improve the players that he has. To a point, you are judged on that. [But] they look as far removed as winning football matches as I’ve ever seen.
“They can’t defend properly. There’s no real pace to them. Nuno’s Nottingham Forest last season, they sat in but they had pace going forward. West Ham don’t have that!”
Forest qualified for Europe in 2024/25 despite averaging the third-lowest possession stats in the division. Understandably, there were many who predicted that Nuno would do the same at the London Stadium, with Crysencio Summerville tipped for a West Ham explosion in the post-Graham Potter era.
That could still happen, of course.
“He’s got Summerville, he’s got Bowen, there’s pace there,” Keown says, hitting back at O’Neill’s claim about a lack of real speed in the Hammers squad. “[And] Paqueta is a really gifted individual.”
“Summerville plays OK, [but] he’s not even in the side,” O’Neill counters. “What I’m talking about is being able to break on [the opposition]. Take Bowen out of the team and they are almost certain to be relegated.”
Arsenal icon feels West Ham have taken a step back under Nuno
OK, there are a few points there that even Nuno’s greatest detractors will take issue with. Summerville may have been pretty anonymous on his return to Leeds, but he was very much on the pitch. In fact, he has started all four of their Premier League matches under Nuno so far.
And, yes, West Ham would probably find themselves circling the plughole without the brilliance of Bowen, but the key point here is that West Ham do have the brilliance of Bowen to rely upon. Hey, Man City would probably struggle to finish top three without Erling Haaland.
“Okay, let’s just look at the basics,” adds Keown, who won three top-flight titles under Arsene Wenger at Arsenal. “So, we’ve got [problems with] set pieces, and I’ve given you the job as the owner and I expect to change.
“It’s schoolboy errors. They concede again at the weekend. It’s like, ‘so, what have we done on the training pitch to improve that’. It’s same story and it’s a different manager!
“They go to Everton, I thought second half, wow, big improvement. But since then…”
Celtic legend says the mentality of the Hammers players is the big issue
O’Neill again, though, puts West Ham’s inability to defend corners and free-kicks down to the mentality of his players.
While former Upton Park goalkeeper Rob Green urges Nuno to follow Sam Allardyce’s lead and drill this into his charges on the training pitch, it’s not as if the Hammers boss has not been trying to do exactly that.
“West Ham are poor. Really, really poor. A poor side. There’s a difference between doing a set piece in a Friday and converting it in a Saturday,” says O’Neill, a two-time European Cup winner with Nottingham Forest in his playing days.
“But do you know what it’s to do with? I’m telling you, I was really brilliant with set pieces on a Friday and I used to bottle it in a Saturday! That’s the point. That’s the major thing about this game. What you do on a Friday is totally immaterial. It’s what you do in the Saturday.”
