THE SUN 🔵 ‘It looked bad’ – Nuno Espirito Santo reveals Ruben Amorim was behind most embarrassing moment of his career
NUNO ESPIRITO SANTO has relived the most embarrassing episode of his career – the moment Ruben Amorim scored with a pot shot that went straight through him.
The Portuguese rivals meet on Thursday for the third time as managers when Amorim’s Manchester United host Nuno’s West Ham.
The Hammers boss won both jousts last season when he was in charge of Nottingham Forest – 3-2 at Old Trafford and 1-0 at City Ground.
But it was a different story when they were both players, with Nuno a goalkeeper for Porto and Amorim putting in the hard yards in Benfica’s midfield.
In 2010 Portugal’s two biggest clubs met in the final of the Taca da Liga – the League Cup – and the game was not yet 10 minutes old when Amorim decided to have an optimistic pop from 30 yards.
The future Old Trafford tactician could only manage a pea-shooter that trundled straight to Nuno – who somehow allowed it to bobble into the net.
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Benfica – with David Luiz at the back and Angel Di Maria on the right flank – went on to win 3-0, leaving Nuno and his team-mates to pick up losers’ medals. As for Amorim, he never scored for the Portuguese giants again!
Nuno smiled as he recalled the moment when the ball squirmed through his gloves.
He said: “Yeah, it was a bad one from me. I had many of those unfortunately. I was not so good.
“I still don’t understand – I think the ball moved! No, it was a bad approach – it looked bad.
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“It was a big match and we lost it – the team didn’t help me. After a mistake of a goalie the best thing that can happen is that the team overcomes and you feel excused of it.
“Unfortunately it happened that we didn’t win that match but I had many of those. All goalkeepers have.”
Alphonse Areola is Nuno’s first-choice keeper right now, and justified that with some quality saves in Sunday’s 2-0 loss to Liverpool.
The Frenchman had been out of favour at the start of the season, however, when Graham Potter was in charge of the Hammers.
But summer signing Mads Hermansen, a £16.5million purchase from Leicester, let in 14 goals in FOUR games and was axed.
Nuno said: “Alphonse is starting, I hope he continues working really well and helping the team.”
The Hammers boosted their chances of avoiding relegation by picking up seven points from the three games before the Liverpool loss.
Home wins over Newcastle and Burnley were followed by a 2-2 draw at Bournemouth.
Nuno ‘worried’
West Ham have yet to keep a clean sheet under Potter’s replacement, however, and Nuno admitted it was worrying him.
He said when asked if it worries him: “A lot. It is always the principle of everything and something that we have to improve on.”
Nuno was satisfied his players were better at bouncing back from conceding though.
He said: “We felt it before, not reacting so well to conceding a goal, but in the previous games we conceded and reacted immediately with a good performance and a good result.
Lucas Paqueta suspended
“Not every game has the same history but what I know is that scoring first is really valuable.”
Attacking midfielder Lucas Paqueta misses out through suspension following his bizarre red card against Liverpool.
The Brazil star picked up two yellow cards in the space of a few seconds for angry verbals directed at referee Darren England.
Paqueta claimed afterwards his head loss was down to the mental strain caused by a two-year probe into betting allegations against him.
Nuno revealed Paqueta had apologised to his team-mates and hinted he would come straight back into the team for Sunday’s clash with Brighton.
Winger Crysencio Summerville and defender Ollie Scarles remain sidelined.