If you can’t win your first game in charge, then not losing is the second best option. And Nuno Espirito Santo has Jarrod Bowen to thank for West Ham United collecting a point on his dugout debut.
Until the 65th minute it appeared as though their wretched form was continuing. Nuno’s tenure looked set to be off to a losing start, after Michael Keane had given Everton a first-half lead, with West Ham conceding an eighth Premier League goal from a corner.
Yet, a fifth defeat across their first six league matches was prevented when Bowen delivered with his left boot, again. He has not been at his best this campaign but curled his third goal of the season into the bottom corner.
Graham Potter’s sacking merely five games into the campaign may have come as a shock but his time in east London had never got going and, combining their start to this season with how they finished last term, his dismissal had been coming.
Nuno will take plenty from this game — both good and bad — when his team were the better side for much of the second half but, still, remain in the bottom three.
Everton, on the other hand, are now without a win in four games across all competitions, and although they deserved their lead during a comfortable first half display, they didn’t do enough to earn the buffer of a two-goal lead.
David Moyes may have craved victory against the club that let him go despite winning their first major trophy in 43 years but this was not one of Everton’s better performances, with Jack Grealish’s impact being particularly limited.
After last weekend’s Merseyside derby defeat, it means they go into a run of fixtures against Crystal Palace, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur with little momentum.
Story of the game
Less than a month had passed since Nuno last prowled the touchline for a Premier League game — ironically West Ham’s sole win of the season on August 31 prompted his dismissal from Nottingham Forest — meaning he only missed two matchdays between jobs.
Nuno had been keen to get straight to work having been appointed on Saturday after Potter’s sacking and took training over the weekend.
The West Ham supporters who had travelled to Merseyside will have at least wanted to see better organisation, if nothing else, within the team that had already conceded 13 goals across five games.
The new head coach decided to draft into his first lineup Niclas Fullkrug for Callum Wilson and Soungoutou Magassa for James Ward-Prowse, who was not included in the squad at all and, it should be remembered, was sent back from a loan at Forest when Nuno was in charge.
A former West Ham head coach was trying to get Nuno off to a losing start, and Moyes’s Everton were able to use the fantastic atmosphere created by this being the first Premier League night match at their new stadium.
Aerial means are how West Ham have come undone of late — with them having conceded seven league goals already from corners — and so it seemed sensible for Everton’s blueprint to hone in on such vulnerabilities.
James Tarkowski delivering a cross from which Beto couldn’t generate enough power for his header was a start. Alphonse Areola dealt with James Garner’s initial set-piece in the 18th minute, but Everton caught the visitors out the second time.
West Ham’s defence should have stepped up when Everton recycled the corner but, instead, allowed the hosts to move the ball back to Garner on the left and his whipped cross was met by Keane, who found himself unmarked to guide a header home at the near post.
If this was all new for Nuno, then the fed up faces in the visitors enclosure only highlighted their recurring misery. And West Ham might have been exposed again had Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall done a better job of directing his header from Iliman Ndiaye’s deep cross.
West Ham’s attacking threat had been limited. Crysencio Summerville was their sole creative force: teeing up Fullkrug for a shot blocked by Vitalii Mykolenko and a cross that the forward failed to get clean contact on.
Nuno sending his players out early for the second half after just 13 minutes in the dressing room suggested the team talk had been brief.
It was Everton, though, who regained the initiative. Idrissa Gueye sent a shot that rose over the crossbar and Max Kilman blocked an effort from Garner after more good work by Ndiaye. Areola was quick to repel a Gamer follow-up from another corner.
West Ham were almost gifted a route back in when Jake O’Brien attempted to guide Areola’s long ball upfield back to Jordan Pickford but, instead, presented an opening to Summerville. The Everton ‘keeper was sharp to the danger, though.
Pickford had little chance moments later when El Hadji Malick Diouf pushed the ball past O’Brien and sprinted down the left before swinging a cross that Tarkowski flicked onto Bowen. The West Ham captain had time to shift the ball onto his left and bend a shot that found the bottom corner.
Bowen kept West Ham on the front foot with a low attempt that Pickford deflected wide. Suddenly, Everton were hanging on, which made Nuno’s decision to take off Summerville rather surprising.
Both teams chased a late winner in what was an end-to-end climax but, at the final whistle, it was Nuno who was the quicker to shake hands with his first point secured.
