West Ham fires Potter after 5 games of the Premier League season. Nuno lined up as replacement

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West Ham fired manager Graham Potter on Saturday, just five games into the new Premier League season and two days before playing Everton in its next match.

Nuno Espirito Santo, who left Nottingham Forest on Sept. 9, was the favorite to replace Potter, according to sections of the British media including Sky Sports and the BBC.

Potter paid the price for West Ham slumping to next-to-last place after losing four of its league games so far. The team is already out of the English League Cup.

Potter took charge in January and led the London club to a 14th-placed finish last season.

“Results and performances over the course of the second half of last season and the start of the 2025-26 season have not matched expectations,” West Ham said, “and the board of directors believe that a change is necessary in order to help improve the team’s position in the Premier League as soon as possible.”

West Ham added that the “process of appointing a replacement is underway.”

Potter's backroom staff also have left.

West Ham turned to Potter at the start of 2025 after Julen Lopetegui — the successor of long-serving boss David Moyes — lasted only 22 matches.

Potter had turned down multiple job proposals during a nearly two-year spell out of management following his dismissal by Chelsea, where he lasted seven months in the 2022-23 season. Before that, he built a strong reputation with stints at Ostersund in Sweden, Swansea and Brighton.

West Ham finished last season with only two wins from its final 11 league matches and lost key attacker Mohammed Kudus in the offseason.

The unrest of the West Ham supporters failed to ease after a flurry of signings during the final weeks of the transfer window coincided with heavy defeats to Sunderland (3-0) and Chelsea (5-1) in August.

A 3-0 win at Nottingham Forest last month provided some respite, but West Ham went down by the same score to Tottenham after the September international break and another loss to Crystal Palace last weekend proved to be Potter's final match in charge.

It would be a quick return to management for Nuno, who guided Forest into European competition for the first time in 30 years thanks to a seventh-place finish in the league last season.

However, he was fired just three games into this season after a deterioration in his working relationship with the club’s hierarchy.

The Portuguese coach had a very public falling-out with owner Evangelos Marinakis, reportedly stemming from a breakdown in relations with the club’s recently hired global head of football, Edu Gaspar.

He previously coached Wolverhampton and Tottenham in the Premier League.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer