When a club is an established part of English football’s upper echelons, plays its home games inside a 68,000-seater stadium, and promptly breaks the Championship transfer record following relegation from the top flight, there are expectations that naturally follow. By all accounts, West Ham were supposed to breeze through what is only meant to be a brief dalliance with a second-tier existence. To be winless three matches into the Championship season was inconceivable.

If the travelling contingent’s boos after this draw at Watford were fleeting, their subsequent burst of “you’re getting sacked in the morning” directed at their team’s own manager left no ambiguity. No matter how embryonic this campaign is, the repeated impotency is already unacceptable, and now Nuno Espírito Santo is in the firing line.

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