Nuno Espirito Santo is now in “big trouble” at West Ham according to leading football journalist Jacob Steinberg, who has strong connections at the club.

It has been an utterly miserable week for Nuno Espirito Santo at West Ham.

First came the 3-2 defeat to Championship promotion rivals Southampton at home, after which the Hammers were booed off by frustrated fans at the London Stadium.

To rub salt in the wound on a personal level, Nuno was the only manager Harry Kane snubbed in his Ballon d’Or acceptance speech.

While Nuno handled the Kane snub with relative class, dark clouds continue to gather as West Ham lost to another promotion rival, at home again, when West Brom beat the Hammers 3-1 on Saturday.

Calls for the Hammers board to wield the axe and get a new manager in who can get more out of what is widely considered the best squad in the Championship – boasting its best player in Jarrod Bowen – reached levels not seen previously during Nuno’s 13-month tenure.

Hammers News has already revealed Kretinsky will only review Nuno’s position if West Ham lose to Cardiff and Blackburn this week.

That has not gone down well with many Hammers supporters, who feel the club’s automatic promotion hopes could already be out of reach by then given history shows sides who finish in the top two only lose six matches across an entire 46-game season.

Steinberg says Nuno “lucky not to have been sacked”

Make no mistake, though, Nuno is in “big trouble” at West Ham if Jacob Steinberg is to be believed.

The Hammers-supporting Guardian reporter is well-connected at the London Stadium.

“Nuno in big trouble,” Steinberg said on X.

“Continues to do a poor job, lucky not to be sacked after relegation.”

Clearly in an ideal world, that is not what West Ham fans would want to hear.

The Hammers would rather they were ripping up the Championship playing fantastic, attacking football under Nuno.

Unfortunately the reality is very different.

West Ham sat off both Southampton and West Brom and only pressed sporadically, leaving home fans bored and frustrated.

There has long been a feeling at West Ham that the football simply is not what they want or expect regardless of results.

Indeed it could be argued that in the last 11 years, West Ham have only played the kind of football Hammers fans like in the Farewell Boleyn under Slaven Bilic and for a couple of years under David Moyes.

Nuno has failed to inspire the fans, often baffling supporters with his team selection and tactics. His experimentation in key games at the start of his Hammers tenure also cost the side vital points which came back to haunt him and the club when they were relegated by a solitary win come what May.

Now there is increasing evidence he is failing to inspire the players too.

For how much longer remains to be seen.