Who will be next West Ham boss after Nuno Espirito Santo sack?
West Ham were relegated to the Championship on the final day of the season, a 3-0 win over Leeds not enough to save them after Spurs beat Everton 1-0 across London.
Relegation looks set to cost Nuno Espirito Santo his job, and thus we must inevitably consider the thorny matter of his successor.
These are the current favourites according to the latest odds from Oddschecker.
9=. Sam Allardyce
Just all a bit shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted to appoint the firefighter’s firefighter at this time, if you’ll allow us the most tortured of metaphor mixing.
9=. Steve Cooper
His reputation has taken a hit since the Nottingham Forest days thanks to disastrous spells at Leicester and Brondby. Even a chastened and relegated West Ham will think they can do better and are probably right.
8. Gareth Southgate
We like this one, because it feels like people’s ideas of what Gareth Southgate is and what West Ham are would make this a good fit despite neither Gareth Southgate nor West Ham really being what people’s ideas of them are.
6=. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer
We’re filing this one under ‘interesting but vanishingly unlikely’.
6=. Frank Lampard
There is obviously a universe where this works, but in our universe the timing is just all wrong.
4=. Ruben Amorim
Already feels like we’ve reached a section of names here that only make any kind of sense if Nuno has in fact survived and been sacked only after steering West Ham back to the top flight.
Amorim may have suffered some serious reputational damage at Manchester United, but surely not to the extent that he has to slum it in the English second tier with a club quite so daft as West Ham.
4=. Craig Bellamy
A genuinely interesting wildcard option, but also a monumental gamble at a time when West Ham can’t really afford such frivolity.
Has done fine work with Wales despite narrowly missing out on World Cup qualification, and is another former Hammer on the list. But lack of club-management experience despite time on Vincent Kompany’s coaching staff would make this a bold choice that could be brilliant but could absolutely be… not that.
3. Gary O’Neil
It would at least spare him the worse fate of being forced to take the Chelsea job in November.
2. Slaven Bilic
Out of work since leaving Saudi Pro League side Al-Fateh in August 2024, but a fondly regarded former player and manager at West Ham. Took the Hammers to seventh and 11th-place finishes in his two full Premier League seasons, which isn’t to be sniffed at.
1. Scott Parker
Obvious favourite is obvious. We don’t mean to be glib – sometimes the very obvious answer is the correct one. Scott Parker is available, he’s a former West Ham player packed full of the vital DNA and club-knowing credentials, and is also a time-served and proven achiever of promotion out of the Championship.
Appoint Parker, and they probably come straight back up. What they would then have to do, though, is be big enough and brave enough to get rid of him immediately and appoint an actual Premier League manager.
