It would be fair to say that Nuno Espírito Santo has quite the job on his hands at West Ham United.

Prior to his arrival, the Hammers looked like genuine relegation candidates and had lost four of their five opening Premier League games.

Fortunately, the Portuguese coach was the beneficiary of the new manager’s bump against Everton, as his side fought back for a point and looked miles better than they did in previous matches.

Unsurprisingly, it was Jarrod Bowen who scored the all-important goal for the East Londonders, and so long as he’s firing, the club stand a brilliant chance of climbing the table.

With that said, there are several other players in the squad Nuno could help improve, including one who could become as much of a world-beater as Bowen.

Bowen's West Ham rise

Back in January 2020, West Ham opted to spend around £20m on Hull City’s incredibly exciting, but relatively unknown, winger: Bowen.

It was a steady, if unspectacular, start to life in the capital for the Englishman, as in the 13 appearances that season, he scored just a single goal and provided four assists.

Things began to improve, and dramatically so, for the 28-year-old in the following campaign. In just 40 appearances, totalling 2,644 minutes, he managed to score eight goals and provide six assists for the Hammers.

Appearances

245

Starts

220

Minutes

19521′

Goals

77

Assists

52

Goal Involvements per Match

0.52

Minutes per Goal Involvement

151.32′

Points per Game

1.46

However, it was the subsequent two seasons that really saw the former Hull gem cement himself as one of the best attackers in England, as a tally of 31 goal involvements in 21/22 was rewarded with his first England cap that summer, and then his defining moment in a West Ham shirt came a year later.

It was in Prague, in the 90th minute of the Conference League final, when he slotted home the winner, etching his name into the club’s history books and earning them their first European title.

Since then, the game-changing winger has continued to be the club’s most effective attacker, and under Nuno, could be one of the main reasons they start to climb the table this year.

However, with the former Nottingham Forest coach now in the dugout, there is another West Ham ace who could end up reaching a similar level to Bowen.

The West Ham star Nuno could transform into a world-beater

Now, when a new manager arrives at a club, there is a genuine chance that they’ll be able to improve a great deal of the players.

Chalkboard

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Yet, in this instance, there is one player in particular that Nuno could help become a genuine world-beater at West Ham: El Hadji Malick Diouf.

The former Slavia Prague gem only joined the club in the summer, but has already impressed so much that people are now expecting big things of him, with Sky Sports’ Joe Thomlinson going as far as describing him as “one of the finds of the season.”

It’s not hard to see why, as in just six league games, he has already provided three assists, and on another day, he could have picked up two more against Everton due to the number of brilliant crosses he fired into the penalty area.

In fact, it was one of these crosses that eventually led to Bowen’s all-important goal.

The Senegalese international is a machine on the left-hand side and has already been described as “one of the best full-backs in the league” by one analyst.

So, why could Nuno make him even better? Well, there are a few reasons, but the most significant is in how he sets up his teams.

For example, while managing Wolverhampton Wanderers, the São Tomé-born coach would often deploy a back five and use wing-backs to get the ball up the pitch as fast as possible.

Then, while he did end up primarily playing a back four at Forest, the 51-year-old still utilised his full-backs to provide the width in his teams and to get the ball up to his attackers.

So, should he maintain this emphasis on his full-backs getting up the pitch as fast as possible and delivering crosses for his forwards, then Diouf should see his numbers explode, as even under the turgid football of Potter, he was a genuine attack outlet.

Ultimately, it’ll take a long time for the “explosive” full-back, as dubbed by one analyst, to reach the level of Bowen, but from what he has shown thus far, combined with Nuno’s coaching philosophy, he may well get there.