West Ham’s biggest summer signing Matheus Fernandes is yet to make any real impact, but can he step things up under Nuno Espirito Santo?

A lot of eyebrows were raised when West Ham United paid £38m rising to a potential £42m for Southampton’s Portugal U21 international Matheus Fernandes. The central midfielder was said to be Graham Potter’s top midfield target after missing out on Liverpool’s Harvey Elliott.

Fernandes has started every single game for the club since his arrival, under both Potter and Nuno. However, after impressing in the 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest at the end of August, he hasn’t really had any stand out performances since.

The biggest problem for Fernandes is that he isn’t playing in his best position, the 20-year-old’s best position is the most advanced number eight, and unfortunately, he cannot play that position at West Ham because of Lucas Paqueta. Fernandes is either playing as an eight alongside Paqueta but taking more defensive responsibility, or he is practically playing as a number six like he was at the Emirates on Saturday.

Fernandes doesn’t just have attacking talent, he’s very active and hard-working defensively too, so that helps him out when he’s playing deeper. However, he was brought in to help the side progress the ball and create chances, but he hasn’t showed that at all yet.

Naturally, if the teams performances improve under Nuno then Fernandes’ should, but I struggle to see him adapting to this role he’s going to be playing under Nuno, he may have too much defensive responsibility that he can’t excite fans like he did at Southampton.

One thing that might help Fernandes is the Portuguese-connection between him and the manager. Not only will the midfielder be able to communicate perfectly with Nuno, he will probably understand his style a lot more. While he might not be the attacking and creative force we hoped we signed, Nuno might be able to turn him into a more all round central midfielder.