It wasn’t the goals Hermansen conceded in South Wales, though, that got Parker talking at full-time. The Dane’s distribution is considered to be one of his strong points. But the fact that Hermansen touched the ball 42 times on the night – far more than Taty [20], Manor Solomon [26] and Magassa [26] – had the head coach demanding that West Ham stop taking the easy option, going back to the keeper when they could instead look to push forward.

“In the first half, we were clearly really poor,” Parker said. “I thought we were poor in both phases of the game – out of possession we were quite passive at certain moments, and with the ball there was certainly a lot to work on.

“There were a lot of backwards passes, and the goalkeeper had a lot of touches.”

One of the big changes Parker made at half-time – while introducing Kante, Mayers and Piroe – was to instruct his team to go more direct. Make runs in behind the Cardiff backline, and turn a defence which could not have asked for an easier opening 45.

Jarrod Bowen pulled the strings, floating a gorgeous pass into Divine Mukasa for 3-1. Piroe then flicked the ball on for Arne Engels to fire home his first Hammers goal. Bowen turned provider again – his eighth assist of the season – when Max Kilman clipped his cross past Nathan Trott in the 82nd minute.

“Maybe not so much a surprise, but a big learning [curve]. The second half was the polar opposite to the first, really, and to come back into the game like we did was brilliant,” added Parker, who must have feared he would suffer the heaviest debut defeat of any West Ham manager when Cardiff stormed into a 3-0 lead.

“It was a forceful team, an aggressive team, a front-footed team, which was obviously a big improvement. What I will say is that at half-time, you can imagine with the players and the team having come off two bad defeats, and gone 3-0 down after coming here to Cardiff, it shows some incredible character to come back like we did. I’ve just said that to the guys there.”

Hermansen, though, has now let in 21 goals in 14 league matches. Parker’s Burnley only conceded 16 goals in 46 games when securing promotion in 2024/25. Only four keepers have a lower save percentage average, meanwhile, than Hermansen’s 55 per cent.