Frank or Nuno to join Lampard, O'Neil and, well, Nuno among its victims?

Another weekend, another Sackico.

We went way too early last week by suggesting that West Ham v Forest might be the most beleaguered fixture in Barclays history.

Maybe it was, but it’s been immediately trumped by the fact that Despair’s Nuno Espirito Santo and High Performance Podcast’s Thomas Frank have both somehow survived to reach Tottenham v West Ham, the most misery-addled fixture currently conceivable, this weekend.

It is prime El Sackico areas; it genuinely feels impossible for both managers to emerge unscathed on the other side.

There’s also something fitting about it happening in the darkness of a 3pm Blackout fixture. The execution will not be televised.

But is El Sackico actually even a real thing? We put our big boy investigative journalist pants on and set off to find out. Our rigorous method? Googling ‘El Sackico’ and seeing which games came up, and whether it truly did spell the end for one of or indeed ultimately both the managers involved.

El Sackico: Nuno’s Tottenham 0-3 Solskjaer’s Manchester United, October 2021

This does appear to be El Sackick Patient Zero. There’s a lot more chortling at the phrase itself and explaining what it means in the links this one throws up. The Sun go so far as to say:

Fans online have even dubbed the fixture ‘El Sackico with managers Nuno Espirito Santo and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer both clinging on by their fingertips.

An official Sun dubbing? Good enough for us, and it should be good enough for you. This is an outlet that knows a thing or two about a dubbing. Not for nothing are they known throughout the land as The Good Dub Guide (sorry).

Anyway. There were plenty of reports before the game that defeat would spell the end for whichever doomed manager ended up on the wrong side of events at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

In – and this will shock you – a poisonous atmosphere with boos ringing out towards their own players (notably a still only partially reintegrated Harry Kane after the Man City unpleasantness), Nuno’s Tottenham were absolutely rank.

They slumped to a 3-0 defeat (you can read 16 Conclusions here) against a United team buoyed by a Turn Back The Clock effort from Cristiano Ronaldo, with the most infamous moment Nuno’s decision to withdraw Lucas Moura and bring on Steven Bergwijn, which was met with the same response as if he had personally pissed on 60,000 Spurs fans’ cornflakes.

El Sacked? Nuno was gone two days later after just 17 matches as Tottenham boss. FUN FACT: Saturday’s return to White Hart Lane 2.0 will be his 18th match as West Ham boss. Solskjaer’s reprieve was temporary; three weeks later he was also gone. But never forgotten.

El Sackico: Moyes’ West Ham 2-0 Lampard’s Everton, January 2023

‘Cruelly dubbed’ El Sackico according to the BBC’s Simon Stone, but that’s inevitable given two contrasting media darlings were the beleaguered managers in question. On one side, proper football man Moyes whose long-inevitable departure from West Ham was already being piled up with ‘Careful what you wish for’ warnings that were – listen, fair play – pretty accurate in the end. And on the other, Super Frankie Lampard, whose limitations as a Premier League manager were more than made up for by his excellent record as a player and, more importantly still, absolute willingness to chat amicably with the media.

West Ham actually won the game pretty straightforwardly, two first-half goals from Jarrod Bowen more than enough to see off a miserable and forlorn Everton side.

Things already looked bleak for Lampard with beloved Everton owner Farhad Moshiri choosing, entirely at random we’re sure, this particular away game to attend his first Everton match in 14 months, hovering around the London Stadium like the grim reaper. He would later, bafflingly, claim that sacking Lampard was not his decision.

It certainly wasn’t a harsh one. Defeat at West Ham meant a run of one point in seven games for the Toffees, including an absurd five defeats in six-pointers against direct rivals in what was at the time a packed relegation battle.

El Sacked? Lampard was gone within 48 hours, which does seem to be the accepted polite timeframe for these matters. Even other bastard owners aren’t quite at Mr Marinakis levels.

Moyes insisted he felt he still had the board’s backing regardless of the outcome here, and would of course go on to lift the Conference League trophy five months later before stumbling through one more season of gripes and grumbles about his playing style that do now sound quite funny, all things considered.

El Sackico: Lopetegui’s West Ham 0-0 Dyche’s Everton, November 2024

The key element here was timing. Obviously timing is vital to all Sackico dubbings, but there are few more perfect times for them than the last fixture before the November international break. The two weeks to either stew or act in what does represent the last reasonably dignified time to make a move that can actually turn a season around rather than focus entirely on merely averting disaster.

Change course during the November interlull and there is some potential for the new man to get a kind of mini pre-season in with whatever handful of players remain at the club rather than gallivanting off around the world, and it does allow some time to forge coherent and constructive plans with which to attack the January transfer window.

It’s the last time in the season when a managerial change can look like a considered rather than panicked decision, really.

The ‘careful what you wish for’ warnings were already echoing around West Ham heads, with their supporters’ really quite reasonable retort that replacing Moyes with Spanish Moyes was not in fact what any of them had wished for falling almost entirely on deaf ears.

The game itself was beyond wretched. A genuine contender in any worst Premier League game of all time list. A grimly won point apiece kept both teams out of the bottom three but with neither any conviction nor much dignity.

El Sacked? Both men survived the interlull, although it would later emerge that both clubs had given serious thought to making a move during that break.

Both of them probably should have done so. The axe fell on both in the space of 48 hours less than two months later.

El Sackico: Lopetegui’s West Ham 2-0 O’Neil’s Wolves, December 2024

There are patterns, aren’t there? Certain familiar recurring elements to a proper slice of Sackico action. Nuno. West Ham. Wolves. Jarrod Bowen. It’s all linked. It’s all a conspiracy. We’re through the looking glass here, people.

This might actually be the apex Sackico for containing all the format’s most vital elements. West Ham v Wolves on a Monday night with both teams in DESPERATE NEED of a MORALE BOOST and looking to EASE RELEGATION FEARS. Classic Sackico fare.

Wolves were, as is customary in the first half of any Premier League season, deep in the relegation soup down in 19th. West Ham were five places better off, but unrest was bubbling in equally customary fashion as nervous glances were aimed over shoulders.

West Ham won the game 2-1 with second-half goals from Tomas Soucek and Bowen (!) either side of a Matt Doherty equaliser for the beleaguered visitors in a bad-tempered game that ended with Mario Lemina brawling with Bowen and losing the captaincy as a result.

El Sacked? O’Neil managed to hang grimly on for one more week before a home defeat to Ipswich and more daft ill-discipline – Rayan Ait-Nouri was sent off after the game, while Matheus Cunha’s total headloss entered legend – spelled the inevitable end. Lopetegui struggled forlornly on for another month before being put out of everyone’s misery.

El Sackico: Nuno’s West Ham 1-2 Dyche’s Nottingham Forest, January 2026

Here was a perfect fixture to highlight the sheer insanity of this season’s managergeddon-based antics.

Nuno Espirito Santo had started the season as Forest manager, of course, but now found himself at West Ham taking on his former club, who had by this point already appointed and sacked his replacement, Ange Postecoglou, with time enough for his replacement Sean Dyche to also start coming under pressure.

When the Hammers took a first-half lead it really did look like Dyche might become the third Forest manager binned off this season by cartoon supervillain Mr Marinakis. But a stirring second-half fightback against, it must be said, a dispiritingly moribund West Ham took Forest to a crucial victory.

As Forest eased away from the bottom three, West Ham found themselves ever more deeply mired inside it with the chance of escape looking bleaker than ever. It was the lowest moment of West Ham’s season, prompting the inevitable paraphrasing of Homer Simpson at his inspirational best: ‘So far. Lowest moment of the season so far.’

El Sacked? TBC. Nuno has, against the odds it must be said, somehow survived and made it as far as the next Sackico. We’re fascinated to see how many he can emerge from. Tottenham this weekend is one, obviously. Sunderland definitely isn’t, and it is probably too early even for Chelsea to be considering sacking Liam Rosenior just yet, so it’s not until Burnley in the first week of February that the next possibility comes along.

It’s Man United three days after that, and we’re all in for a lot of fun if that has Sackico status. With all due respect to Nuno, it does feel like even looking that far ahead is at the giddier end of optimistic.

As for Dyche, he’s just about fine again for now. But how safe can any manager ever truly be in Mr Marinakis’ lair? No obvious further upcoming Sackicos on his schedule, although we will make what is now an only slightly mischievous note next to the game with Crystal Palace on February 1.

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