All of a sudden, West Ham United have stitched together consecutive league wins and are back in the survival fight.
Their previous home league game, against Nottingham Forest, ended in defeat — from 1-0 up — and left them seven points adrift from safety.
Eighteen days later that gap is down to two, with Forest travelling to Brentford (Sunday) the day after West Ham beat Sunderland 3-1 at home.
Inconsistency has been the thread throughout this season. Consecutive home wins over Newcastle United (3-1) and Burnley (3-2) in November were false dawns, as a spell of 10 games without a win followed, before a late victory away at Tottenham Hotspur last weekend.
So it’s entirely plausible that they do not kick on from here either. Opta’s prediction model had West Ham’s likelihood of relegation at 78 per cent pre-match.
This is not quite the great escape territory of 2006-07 but there is little margin for error because of the quality of the promoted teams compared to previous years — proven by Sunderland starting the day 16 points and nine places better off than Nuno Espirito Santo’s side.
“Good momentum,” Nuno told reporters after the win. “The way we started helped a lot. We were really accurate in our combination (play) and finishing, which helps confidence.” West Ham were 3-0 up by half-time from eight shots and four big chances.
The major positives are how quickly the team’s attacking identity is crystallising following the arrivals of forwards Pablo (from Gil Vicente) and Taty Castellanos (from Lazio).
Those two have become an established forward pair that makes the 4-4-1-1 system work. Felipe plays just off Castellanos, the main target for long balls by goalkeeper Alphonse Areola.
On Saturday West Ham were 3-0 up in a Premier League home game at half-time for the first time since July 2020 (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
One major benefit is that Jarrod Bowen and Crysencio Summerville can play their natural wide roles.
One of Nuno’s many shape switches and tactical tweaks earlier this season involved using the pair as split strikers in a 4-3-1-2. He also unsuccessfully trialled a 3-4-3, and memorably started full-backs Oliver Scarles and Kyle Walker-Peters on their unnatural sides in a home defeat by Brentford.
Nuno named the same starting XI against Sunderland as the one that beat Spurs.
Partnerships are materialising everywhere. Faced with a compact 4-4-2 block, right-back Aaron Wan-Bissaka pushed up into the half-space, helping to overload the last line and support Bowen.
This showed for the opening goal, an excellent winger-to-winger move which West Ham had teased with early crosses and sustained pressure, after needing the first five minutes to settle.
Bowen stood up a back-post cross towards a three-v-three, where Summerville rose higher than Nordi Mukiele to head home — the third time in three appearances he has put them 1-0 up, and just a second career headed goal for the 5ft 8in (174cm) winger.
“The players started to connect better, click (and) flow, realising what we have to do in terms of bodies in the box in our offensive process. That has been good,” Nuno explained, repeating the importance of having enough targets for crosses.
And Summerville’s narrow positioning meant Scarles could overlap, which was the combination from which the left-back won the penalty on 27 minutes. Bowen dispatched that superbly, his seventh goal of the campaign.
102 – Jarrod Bowen now has the outright most goal involvements for West Ham in Premier League history (62 goals, 40 assists), moving one clear of Michail Antonio. Iron. #WHUSUN pic.twitter.com/TCRcXVfbkn
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) January 24, 2026
But the standout performance in the east London sunshine came from 21-year-old Mateus Fernandes, who dovetailed in midfield with Tomas Soucek.
He crowned the first half with a top-corner finish from outside the box and almost repeated the trick late on, though his defensive diligence (winning all seven ground duels) stood out.
Mateus Fernandes celebrates scoring his goal, a beauty, during a standout performance (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
As did the Portugal under-21s extensive passing range — hitting switches both sides, and dropping between the centre-backs to dictate play — which West Ham needed most.
They did not look like a team without first-choice midfielder Lucas Paqueta amid ongoing uncertainty over his future. Fernandes completed 42 of 47 passes and eight of nine long balls, repeatedly finding Summerville, a vital release valve for the team when under pressure.
At centre-back, Jean-Clair Todibo and Konstantinos Mavropanos made eight combined clearances and were solid for 65 minutes.
Sunderland’s main attacking threat, without injured captain Granit Xhaka, was Mukiele’s long throws. They repeatedly won first contacts from them but West Ham had enough aerial threats close to their own goal to prevent shots.
Todibo twice turned out of pressure, once in each half, rather than launching the ball upfield, the exact kind of confidence West Ham have lacked for most of the season. “They were better than us, better in duels, more composed,” said Sunderland head coach Regis Le Bris.
The only problem was that they had built their lead uncharacteristically early. Wins this season over Forest, Burnley, Spurs and Queens Park Rangers (FA Cup) were all late shows.
West Ham looked more nervous than Sunderland looked confident in the second half, retreating rather than pressing and being overly direct.
The failure to keep a clean sheet takes a little gloss off a significant victory. The run is now 20 matches without one — stretching back to Graham Potter’s side beating Nuno’s Forest in August — their longest stretch since 2008 (24 games).
This is a top-half squad with a relegation-level defence, the leakiest (45 goals conceded, six penalties) in the division. If West Ham do go down, that will be what relegates them.
Brian Brobbey’s header, a consolation goal, was symptomatic of West Ham’s aerial issues.
Sunderland were allowed to progress the ball too easily down the right, nobody tracked Mukiele’s underlap, which went inside Todibo. Then Mavropanos initially went towards the crosser, leaving too much distance to make up on the unmarked Brobbey, who Mukiele picked out.
That is headed goal number 14 conceded in 2025-26, an unwanted league high and the most by any West Ham team since their 2010-11 relegation season.
“Second half (there was) an improvement in terms of managing the game,” Nuno said. “They scored but the team didn’t go crazy. The boys stayed calm, didn’t allow too much.”
The positive is three successive wins in all competitions, something they have not achieved since November 2023. Even more importantly, after dropping points from the past five 1-0 leads in home Premier League games (including three losses), they finally have seen out a win — last managing that 11 months ago under Potter against Leicester City.
“We’re still in a tough position,” Nuno accepts. “We cannot stop believing.”