Nuno Espírito Santo's most trusted lieutenant, his long-time number two, his coaching alter ego for the better part of a decade, Rui Pedro Silva is leaving Wolverhampton Wanderers to reunite with his manager at the London Stadium. And if you know anything about how Nuno works and what Silva means to his setup, you understand immediately why The Telegraph's John Percy described it as a "huge boost" the moment it broke this morning. This is not a routine backroom hire. This is the piece Nuno's jigsaw has been missing since the day he walked into Rush Green.
Silva is 49 years old, born in Porto, and has spent the majority of his career operating in the shadow of bigger-name managers, while being absolutely essential to everything those bigger names have achieved. Before they ever arrived in England, Nuno and Silva worked together at Rio Ave, Valencia, and Porto. It's been a relationship that has survived and succeeded in multiple leagues, including Portuguese and Spanish football, before they both came to England.
Championship Champions
Silva was part of the project at Molineux when Nuno guided Wolves to the Championship title after they were relegated in 2012. It took the Wolves 7 different managers and 5 years to get back to the Premier League and it was Nuno and Costa who helped get them there. The duo achieved promotion, the FA Cup semi-final, the back-to-back seventh-place finishes, and the Europa League quarter-final campaign that introduced the club to a continental audience.
He followed Nuno to Nottingham Forest, where together they took a club that hadn't played European football since 1980 to the UEFA Europa League group stage. He was part of the blueprint every single time. Not a passenger. Not a yes-man. The architect of the dressing room culture that made it all possible.
In the past, you could often see Silva on the touchline in Nuno's ear and his personality is often a contrast to the manager's measured composure. Silva has collected yellow cards for his passionate protests the way most people collect loyalty points, joyfully and without apology. "I just need to be careful with the yellow cards, because sometimes the anger and the passion mix a little bit with the fighting," he said after returning to Wolves last December. "For sure, that passion, I'll never lose it. Sometimes there is a line between the passion and the fighting, but sometimes it's needed."
This reunion should have happened in September when Nuno took the West Ham job. When Graham Potter was sacked and Nuno arrived in east London, the expectation was that his established backroom team from Nottingham Forest would follow him. Most of them couldn't. The Forest coaches were retained by Ange Postecoglou when he took the job. Silva, specifically, had stayed at Forest rather than immediately follow Nuno — and by the time Postecoglou's disastrous 39-day reign ended, Silva had signed back on at Molineux to assist Rob Edwards with Wolves' own relegation battle.
According to a club source reported at the time, the West Ham board told Nuno they would support his staff appointments but placed limits on how much they were willing to spend buying coaches out of existing contracts. Nuno decided not to pursue his Forest backroom staff and promoted Academy coaches Mark Robson, Steve Potts, and Gerard Prenderville into first-team roles. Those men did their best in extraordinary circumstances, but it was always a stopgap, and everyone inside the club knew it.
With the surprise firing of Edwards and the appointment of Cesar Peixoto, the Wolves are bringing in his preferred backroom staff, freeing up Silva to join Nuno again.
What does this mean for Paco Jimenez ?
Silva is not the only addition being tracked. Two other names from Nuno's trusted network — assistant coach Julio Figueroa and fitness coach Antonio Dias, have been identified as potential arrivals in East London. Figueroa worked alongside Nuno and Silva at Nottingham Forest, where he was part of the backroom infrastructure that built one of the more surprising Premier League stories of recent years before the club's decline last season. Dias brings a fitness and conditioning philosophy Nuno has relied on across multiple clubs. Neither appointment has been confirmed, but the direction is clear.
Where does all this leave Paco Jemez? The assistant coach status has been an emotionally complicated storyline of the entire backroom staff saga. In January, Nuno pivoted and brought in Jemez to be his top assistant after he had been dismissed as the head coach of UD Ibiza a few months prior. His impact was immediate and galvanising. Players who had gone missing for months suddenly rediscovered something. The back line was transformed suddenly Konstantinos Mavropanos looked like one of the best defenders in the Premier League. Even Jean-Clair Todibo looked like a changed man before injuries and a suspension derailed his season.
Nuno also looked like a changed man. Jemez could be seen on the touchline, passionately getting his message across. West Ham fans have adored his commitment and began a campaign on social media pleading with the coach to come back for another run with the club. His contract, however, expired on June 30.
The situation has dragged on with frustrating ambiguity ever since. Jemez himself took to social media on May 29, appearing to say goodbye to the club entirely. Then, in a June interview, he walked it back and declared he wanted to return: "I hope I can do my bit to return the club to the top. West Ham should always be in the Premier League. The fans have shown me so much love. They've made me a Hammer for life." An offer from West Ham was on the table. The problem, as subsequent reporting made clear, was that Jemez's deeper ambition is not to be an assistant coach. "The deputy role was something punctual I did with Nuno," he told Flash Score. "That doesn't mean I couldn't do it again, but I'm looking for a project as a head coach."
Today's news appears to settle the matter by default. With Silva arriving as the established number two, the role Jemez occupied on a temporary basis, there simply isn't the same position available for him anymore. Whether Nuno reaches out to find Jemez another role within the coaching structure remains to be seen. But as things stand, the man who became a cult hero in East London in just six months appears to be heading for the exit.
It is a genuine loss. Jemez's tactical intelligence, his relationship with the players, and his willingness to challenge Nuno directly are strong features rather than a bug. West Ham will be a slightly different place without him. But if the cost of that loss is getting Silva back at Nuno's side, it is a trade most West Ham supporters, however reluctantly, have to accept. You can't argue their success together, especially in the Championship.
Nuno and Costa have done this before. They know exactly what it takes.
Add us as a preferred source on Google