What changed
West Ham United have sacked head coach Nuno Espirito Santo after a poor start to their Championship campaign. Mark Noble, Steve Potts and Gerard Prenderville will take temporary charge for Wednesday’s trip to Cardiff City, while assistant head coach Rui Pedro Silva and goalkeeper coach Rui Barbosa have also left.
Why it matters
West Ham were widely expected to challenge for automatic promotion after relegation from the Premier League last season. Instead, they sit eighth, six points behind leaders Middlesbrough, with two wins in their past six league matches and consecutive home defeats by Southampton and West Bromwich Albion.
The change is therefore a bet on urgency. Nuno had been in charge since September 2025 and oversaw the relegation; the board has now decided that keeping the same structure risks allowing the promotion campaign to drift further.
The immediate test is awkward: a caretaker group must steady the side away at Cardiff before the club has even named a permanent successor. The clearest reading is that West Ham are trying to protect their promotion hopes before the gap at the top becomes harder to close.
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