Nuno Espirito Santo has been sacked by West Ham after a difficult start to the season, with Scott Parker poised to take over.
The Championship promotion favourites are eighth, so far struggling to live up to their billing after being relegated from the Premier League last season.
The former Tottenham, Wolves and Nottingham Forest manager, 52, signed a three-year contract in September 2025 but failed to stop the Hammers from crashing out of the top flight after a poor start to the season.
They were expected to start strongly in the second tier, yet Saturday’s 3-1 home defeat by West Bromwich Albion left them with just six wins in 13 matches before Nuno’s fate was confirmed on Tuesday morning.
Shortly after that news was confirmed, Marrion Areola, wife of West Ham’s back-up keeper Alphonse, aimed a brutal parting dig at Nuno on her Instagram account.
Marrion, who had previously attacked Nuno after last season’s relegation for dropping her husband, shared a series of Instagram stories where she appeared to express her joy at the news.
Nuno Espirito Santo has been sacked by West Ham with the club eighth in the Championship
Marrion Areola, wife of West Ham keeper Alphonse, aimed a brutal parting shot at Nuno
In one, she was smiling and posing for a photo, while in another she was skipping through the streets with Sam Phillips’ ‘Happy’ song playing in the background.
In a third story, she shared a video from the famous film Sound of Music of So Long Farewell being sung.
Within the song, which is performed by the seven von Trapp children, a series of lyrics including ‘so long’, ‘farewell’, ‘good night’, ‘Auf Wiedersehen’, ‘Adieu’ and ‘Au revoir’ are mentioned in what is believed to her parting shot at Nuno.
West Ham’s Instagram post announcing Nuno’s exit, meanwhile, was liked by out of favour Mexican midfielder Edson Alvarez, who is yet to feature in the Championship this season.
George Earthy, a former academy graduate who now plays for Reading, also appeared to like the post.
Back in the summer, Marrion had taken to social media to target Nuno and former boss Graham Potter in a series of posts, blaming the pair for West Ham’s relegation and hitting out at the pair for dropping her husband.
Marrion initially shared an image of Areola holding up the Conference League trophy in 2023 and stated: ‘From a trophy to relegation. Thank you Potter for the start of this season and Nuno for the end.’
In another, Marrion accused Nuno of dropping her husband – who lost his place to Mads Hermansen – ‘for no particular reason’.
‘Being dropped at the beginning of the season for no reason,’ Marrion wrote. ‘Being back after a very bad start and then has made 20 games and all of a sudden: “I’m really sorry – you won’t start”, “Why?”, “For no particular reason but I’m sorry”.’
Marrion also shared a post from December that stated Areola had the highest save percentage in the Premier League, before adding on the club’s relegation: ‘Very sad day for the fans. Very frustrated for the family. But always proud of you no matter what.’
She then placed the blame on Nuno for Areola missing out on France’s squad for the World Cup.
Sharing highlights from Areola’s five appearances for France’s national team she wrote: ‘And NO World Cup this year, thank you Nuno’.
Meanwhile, it is understood that Parker is set to replace the Portuguese boss, with the former West Ham midfielder having been out of work since leaving Burnley shortly after their relegation from the Premier League was confirmed last season.
Parker, who has won promotion to the top flight as a manager with Fulham, Bournemouth and the Clarets, made 129 appearances for the Hammers between 2007 and 2012, winning three Player of the Year awards during his time at the club.
Former West Ham midfielder Scott Parker is poised to replace Nuno at the London Stadium
Nuno’s dismissal comes after the Hammers were beaten 3-1 by West Brom on Saturday
In a club statement on Tuesday morning, West Ham had said: ‘West Ham United can confirm that men’s first-team Head Coach Nuno Espirito Santo has left his position with immediate effect.
‘Following a thorough review of the start to the EFL Championship season, the Board of Directors believe that a change is necessary at this time in order to ensure that the club’s objectives and expectations remain on track.
‘Assistant Head Coach Rui Pedro Silva and Goalkeeper Coach Rui Barbosa have also departed.
‘West Ham United would like to thank Nuno, Rui and Rui for their hard work and commitment during their time at the club, and wish them all the very best for the future.
‘The process of recruiting a new Head Coach is already underway.’
The club added that Mark Noble, Steve Potts and Gerard Prenderville would take temporary charge of the team ahead of Wednesday’s trip to Cardiff City.
However, it is believed that Parker will be in charge for that game if a deal is agreed in time, and that Noble, a former team-mate of his, could be part of his backroom team.
Many had expected Nuno to depart in the aftermath of relegation – and Daily Mail Sport understands that Hammers co-owner David Sullivan wanted to part ways with the Portuguese coach – but Daniel Kretinsky, now the club’s largest shareholder, backed him to lead the club’s promotion charge.
After that decision, the club released a statement outlining their plans and revealed that Nuno was ‘highly motivated’ for the challenge ahead.
Despite the high-profile sales of Mateus Fernandes and Crysencio Summerville in the summer, West Ham kept the likes of Jarrod Bowen, Tomas Soucek, Taty Castellanos and Konstantinos Mavropanos.
They also invested heavily in the squad, which included the addition of Arne Engels from Celtic for a Championship record fee of £22million.
Although they picked up 6-0 victories over Wrexham and Lincoln City, Nuno’s side struggled for consistency, and back-to-back defeats by Southampton and West Brom in recent weeks proved to be the final straw.
During and after the defeat by the Baggies, home fans at the London Stadium turned on Nuno and subjected him to chants of ‘sacked in the morning’.
Speaking to the media afterwards, Nuno outlined his desire to turn things around.
‘Every day there is pressure,’ he said. ‘I’m disappointed because we wanted to improve things. We want to win matches.
‘This (the chants) is the reality. You can only change this if we win games. That’s the solution: getting better results. We have to go back to good performances.
‘We dropped points against Burnley (in the season opener), we lost (at home) to Charlton, Southampton and West Brom. The only solution is to improve our game. When we do that, our fans are going to stick with us. They’re going to support us.’
West Ham co-owner David Sullivan had wanted to part ways with Nuno back in the summer
West Ham have suffered back-to-back defeats after last season’s Premier League relegation
There is a certain irony to the defeat by West Brom being the end for Nuno given he is a legendary former manager of their arch-rivals Wolves.
But, despite an upturn in form at the back-end of last season and an eight-game unbeaten run earlier in this campaign, he departs the London Stadium with a record of 19 wins, 19 defeats and 15 draws from 53 matches in charge.
After the Cardiff game, West Ham – who are six points adrift of table-toppers Middlesbrough – face a trip to Blackburn before the two-week international break.
