Former manager Graham Potter went into training camp and pre-season last season and tried to undo some of the damage created by Julen Lopetegui the previous season. He was looking for a new identity. He wanted to create his squad, his style, and questioned whether if the group of players would buy in. His direction and his attempt at creating his football club utopia ended in a worse mess than the one he had taken over. By the time Nuno Espírito Santo took over, the dressing room was fractured, almost irreparable, and it took him months to help his players find their way back.
Potter’s plan was to remove aging players and leaders of the David Moyes regime. Out were Aaron Cresswell, Michail Antonio, Vladimir Coufal, and Emerson Palmieri. These were players who had exemplified professionalism, loyalty, leadership, and, most importantly, they kept the dressing room in check. In March, GSH reported on the fractured dressing room. Sources confirmed that, in addition to the upheaval with the veteran core of the club, Potter began questioning whether what remained could be effective enough to implement his mission. He pulled players like Tomas Soucek, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, and James Ward-Prowse aside and asked them if Jarrod Bowen was fit for the armband. Despite warnings from veteran players, Potter continued to alienate Bowen’s ability to lead, questioning the lack of leadership in the media.
Unknowingly, moving on from Emerson deeply affected Lucas Paqueta’s commitment to West Ham. Emerson had been part of the recruitment of the squad’s former number 10. They had played together for two seasons at Lyon and had developed a close relationship. “Soon as Emerson was sent to Marsielle, you could tell how unhappy [Paqueta] was,” said a source. “Throughout Lucas’s time at West Ham, he always had Emerson as a sounding board. They were mates. Any time Lucas would fall off the rails, his mate was there to bring him back.”
Not knowing how important Emerson was to one of the club’s best players shows a disconnect Potter had with the squad. Ten days after Emerson was shipped off to France, Paqueta had already made his decision, posting on his Instagram, “Let’s go for one more season.” A strange reaction at the time, but his mind was made up. He was leaving West Ham. By the time Nuno took over, Paqueta’s mind was gone, and without his teammate to pull him back, he pushed for a move away.
In Emerson’s place, Potter brought in a 20 year-old left back in El Hadji Malick Diouf. The new signing would battle it out with academy graduate Ollie Scarles. Instead of having a veteran like Cresswell or Emerson to bring both along, Diouf and Scarles were on their own. Again, Potter failed to realize where a veteran player would make a difference.
Nuno’s takeover
By the time Nuno arrived, the leadership core Potter had presided over was simply gone. Players like Wan-Bissaka, who had been named Hammer of the Year in the previous season was checked out. Jean Clair-Todibo had previously fought with both Potter and Lopetegui was officially a malcontent. Potter had forced a player like Niclas Füllkrug into the lineup despite not being committed. Nuno removed him as soon as he had the chance. Getting the players to buy into a new way of working proved difficult in those first two months. It was understandable, given how fractured things had become. That left Bowen and Soucek essentially holding the dressing room together on their own, two players trying to do the job that used to be shared among four or five senior voices.
The mood didn't properly shift until Nuno started rebuilding that core himself. He brought in Paco Jimenez as his assistant coach and top lieutenant. Taty Castellanos and Pablo Felipe gave the squad fresh energy, and the pursuit of a defender like Axel Disasi brought back a veteran leader on defense that they were sorely missing. His hunger to get back to playing regularly reinvigorated the back line. Konstantinos Mavorpanos fed off of Disasi, and the two immediately made a consistent defensive pairing and helped the club stop the bleeding and stabilized what was a weakness in the first half of the season. In addition to improved play, Mavropanos bought in, and Nuno rewarded him by giving him the armband during an FA Cup match. It was a responsibility he did not take for granted, and it no doubt had a lasting impression going into relegation and a season in the 2nd tier.
In the same post in March, GSH reported how Bowen's letter to supporters in January sealed the shift, causing a ripple effect within the dressing room. GSH detailed how the captain’s letter to fans publicly took on the burden of the squad's dismal first half, rather than let it sit on a squad already low on confidence. Teammates read it, and shortly afterward West Ham strung together a run of results that gave the group real hope for the first time all season. Former teammate Vladimir Coufal put it simply around that time: Bowen was a leader the club "would be in an even bigger mess without."
It wasn't quite enough in the end. West Ham were relegated regardless, missing survival by the narrowest of margins, a single win's worth of points separating them from safety. But the manner of that run said plenty about what Bowen's leadership, on its own, and how the club could still produce even in a losing cause.
The new leadership core
That's the backdrop against which this season's rebuild makes sense. Bowen, Soucek and Mavropanos have all worn the armband and have genuine affection for their time in East London; Taty has established himself as an important on-field voice since arriving; new arrival Joel Veltman brings the kind of senior, well-travelled presence the dressing room lost with Cresswell and Coufal.
If the Disasi move goes through, it would add another experienced character with a point to prove. Crucially, these are players who have bought in and actively wanted to be part of it. All of them have years of experience behind them, all of them want to see West Ham back in the Premier League, and, by most accounts, all of them still feel that last season's relegation was, in some part, on them. That sense of ownership is exactly what was missing under Potter and exactly what Nuno has spent the past ten months putting back together.
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