Nuno Espirito Santo in talks with West Ham hierarchy over future after relegation from Premier League on final day of season

Nuno Espirito Santo and West Ham's hierarchy are in talks regarding his future at the club following relegation from the Premier League.

West Ham are able to terminate his contract without compensation due to the their relegation and Nuno is also able to walk away from his contract.

He guided the Hammers to 39 points after victory over Leeds on the final day of the season, but they still fell into the Championship with the highest points total for a relegated side in 15 years.

Nuno took charge of West Ham in September following the sacking of Graham Potter, who lost five of his first six games of the season.

Nuno - who won 12 of his 37 matches at the London Stadium - was himself sacked by Nottingham Forest just weeks before arriving in east London.

Sitting in what could end up being Nuno Espirito Santo's final press conference as West Ham boss after the win over Leeds, there was an unmistakable sense of inevitability hanging in the room. The relationship between club and manager appeared to have reached the end of the road long before the formalities.

Nuno arrived as the highest-paid head coach in West Ham's history, tasked with steering the club towards progression but instead oversaw relegation. Cost-cutting now becomes the priority and, as reports suggest, West Ham may have even be able to terminate his contract without a significant payoff due to relegation clauses.

Nuno was keen to stress after the Leeds defeat that West Ham went down with 39 points - a tally that, across the previous 10 Premier League campaigns, would comfortably have been enough for survival. The average survival line during that period sat at 32.5 points. This was not a side cut adrift in February, doomed by incompetence. It was a team caught on the wrong side of unusually high standards for survival.

Across the final 14 Premier League matches, West Ham collected 19 points - the eighth-best return in the division during that spell. That form projects more towards steady mid-table form than relegation collapse.

Nuno's reputation is unlikely to suffer significantly within the game. Coaches with his organisational quality, calm authority and Premier League experience do not remain out of work for long if he was to be released. The final league table will always carry his name beside a relegation, but those looking beyond the headline numbers will see context.