West Ham are staring into the abyss and Nuno's muddled thinking has helped them get here

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The fans who remained booed the team and chanted: “You’re not fit to wear the shirt” having just witnessed West Ham lose their third consecutive Premier League game in a 3-1 defeat to Newcastle. The loss leaves Nuno Espirito Santo’s side in the relegation zone and two points behind 17th-placed Tottenham Hotspur, who face Chelsea at Stamford Bridge this Tuesday. Discontent has been brewing for weeks but this was the day that the majority of the fanbase lost hope in Nuno and his team. Other players joined Bowen, Hermansen, Mavropanos and Fernandes in acknowledging supporters but the decibels of their disdain grew stronger. Midfielder Tomas Soucek covered his mouth as he spoke to Bowen while Mavropanos and Fernandes were in deep discussion as they left the field. The boos continued as the players and backroom staff headed towards the tunnel. West Ham will be relegated to the Championship for the first time since 2011 if Tottenham beat Chelsea. A draw would also effectively see West Ham go down due to Spurs’ superior goal difference. In order for things to go to the final day of the season when Nuno’s side hose Leeds United, they need Chelsea, who recently announced the appointment of Xabi Alonso as their next manager, to win. Post-match, Nuno said it “hurt a lot” hearing fans voice their disdain towards the players, and it will be “extremely difficult now” to ensure top-flight safety. Bowen, believes that he and his team-mates deserved to be criticissed. “We can all understand the frustration in the stands, 100 per cent,” the England international told West Ham’s official website. “We’ve been involved in a relegation battle for two seasons now, and we can’t expect anything else because we haven’t had enough good moments this season. “To find ourselves in this situation now is obviously hard to accept, and I can fully understand the frustration because there isn’t really an answer back to it. We haven’t been good enough and now we’re having to rely on other results to give us a chance next Sunday.” Nuno, who succeeded Graham Potter in late September on a three-year deal, has overseen 36 games, losing 16, winning 11 and drawing nine. It is worth remembering that West Ham failed to keep a clean sheet in their first 19 league games under the former Wolves, Spurs and Nottingham Forest head coach. Over the last eight months, Nuno has got a number of big decisions wrong and has been prone to selecting the wrong formation or personnel at various times. He played academy graduate Ollie Scarles, who is naturally a left-back, as a right-back in the 2-0 loss to Brentford in October. Midfielder Andy Irving, who joined Sparta Prague in January, had seldom featured in the starting XI in the early throes of the season yet also started that fixture. In the following game against Leeds United, where West Ham lost 2-1, Nuno showed stubbornness in sticking with the same personnel. Pablo, the €20million (£17.4m, $23.4m) January arrival from Portuguese side Gil Vicente, is yet to score in 16 appearances, 12 of which have been starts. Callum Wilson was on course for a hat-trick against Bournemouth in November but West Ham’s two-goal lead slip after Nuno substituted the striker in the 52nd minute. He did not settle on a Soucek and Fernandes partnership until mid-January, with Freddie Potts and Soungoutou Magassa the previous preferred option. Most damning of all was completely changing his formation last-minute before March’s 2-0 loss to Aston Villa. Nuno intended to play a wing-back system but Jean-Clair Todibo suffered a calf injury during the warm-up. Due to Maximilian Kilman’s poor form, the head coach opted against making a like-for-like change and switched to a 4-3-3 shape, with Potts replacing Todibo in the line-up. The players had not worked on this system in the build-up to the game, which proved to be another wasted opportunity. Given the circumstances for a game against Arsenal last time out, a defensive wing-back system against the league leaders was understandable, but sticking with the same system against Newcastle was another reminder of how incognisant Nuno can be in his approach. West Ham have displayed encouraging performances in a 4-4-2 formation. After conceding twice in the opening 19 minutes, Nuno went back to this familiar system when he substituted Todibo for Taty Castellanos. To compound matters, the centre-back smirked as he left the field. Castellanos, who scored West Ham’s spectacular consolation goal and also hit the outside of the crossbar, showed great fighting spirit but it was too little too late. Two of the three goals West Ham conceded against Newcastle were also down to individual errors. In the 15th minute, Hermansen overhit his pass for Todbio, which enabled winger Harvey Barnes to capitalise on the mistake to assist Nick Woltemade. In the 65th minute, second-half substitute Pablo miscontrolled El Hadji Malick Diouf’s quick throw-in. Joe Willock made an interception and good link-up play between the midfielder and William Osula saw the forward score his second goal of the game. This season, West Ham have made eight errors leading to goals, the eighth-highest in the league. “We started really bad again; you can see the mistakes that we made,” said Nuno in his post-match press conference. “Maybe it was not the best decision (to start with three at the back), maybe we didn’t prepare the players well enough. We have to look and take responsibility for it.” Sunday’s loss to Newcastle added to the long compilation of West Ham lows this campaign. Their plight bears similarities to a leaky roof. During their brief mini-revival of March and April, where they lost just once in the league, signs of life had fooled many beyond the West Ham contingent, but those closer to the core knew that one day, this weakened structure would eventually fail to keep out the rain, doom and gloom. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms