- Nuno Espirito Santo spoke ahead of Crystal Palace vs West Ham
- Managerial record against the Eagles
- Where the Hammers look to cause problems
West Ham United manager Nuno Espirito Santo has spoken about the challenge he expects to face when his side travels to South London on Monday night, April 20th.
The Irons currently sit just one point above Tottenham Hotspur in the relegation zone, and have a chance to extend that gap with a positive performance against Palace. What has perhaps made it even more crucial for West Ham to collect points is the performances of both Leeds United and Nottingham Forest this weekend.
Both sides won, extending themselves from Spurs and West Ham, leaving the two London clubs languishing and facing off for survival. As Tottenham continue to drop points despite new manager Roberto De Zerbi sparking some form of life into his side, West Ham have won three of their last five Premier League games.
‘Hard to Beat’ – Nuno on Palace
Across his managerial career Nuno has faced Palace on eleven occasions. With four wins, four draws and three losses in those games, Palace fans will be hoping for a win to balance the numbers.
When speaking on Oliver Glasner’s side, Nuno said “we watched the Crystal Palace game [vs Fiorentina] on Thursday and it’s always a good moment to analyse and to see.”
“We know Palace well and they’re a very good team and very hard to beat. They have an idea with Oliver Glasner for some time that has brought a lot of success for them.”
Nuno was full of praise for his Austrian counterparts’ side, and also credited the talent across Palace’s squad.
“They are a very good team with a shape and idea and threats from all over the place. They are really established and it brought them a lot of success last season and they continue to perform well.”
“They have individual players who are very talented.”
Nuno looked back on Palace’s season and performances with adoration for Glasner.
“That’s credit to them and credit to Oliver to keep them tight and together. You can see by their performances that they’re a very good team.”
West Ham focusing on themselves
After their 4-0 home win over Wolves last time out, the Irons have had nine days to recover and prepare for Monday’s trip to Selhurst Park. The atmosphere at the London Stadium was much livelier than in recent weeks, and Nuno reflected on the win and how the side’s recent form has improved the feeling within the club.
“We’re working hard, the atmosphere is good and we’re focused and getting ready for Monday.”
“It’s positive after a good performance. It helps in terms of preparation and we’ll make sure we’re focused on what we have to do.”
“Our preparation doesn’t change. We only focus on ourselves. We cannot control what happens [in other games].”
There’s no hiding from the fact that Nuno’s side are deep in a relegation battle, but there will be some momentum gained seeing Spurs falter to a draw despite leading twice against Brighton. Had they won, West Ham would find themselves in the relegation zone, and Nuno admitted that despite the league not being over the league position going into each game has an impact.
“It’s much better [to be outside the bottom three] when you see you made a big effort to improve the situation, but nothing has changed really, as we still have six games to go and a lot of work to do.”
Where his side has struggled recently has been finding consistency. At times this season, since Nuno’s appointment, they have played some excellent football. However, finding moments to carry this form on for entire games or across numerous matches has been a thankless task.
That has begun to change recently though, and Nuno has made it clear how important it is that his side can find this consistency. “The big challenge we have is to sustain our level of performance. This is the big challenge, to see if we can go not just in parts of our games, but for the whole 90 minutes.”
“Against Wolves the first-half was not so good. Then there was much improvement, and in other games we have started well, we need to find balance.”
Nuno will be hoping his side can continue their strong Premier League form, while Palace and Glasner will be hoping to dampen West Ham’s recently rediscovered spirits.
