Three wins in eight days have changed the mood around West Ham. A draw at Burnley, a home defeat to Charlton and a draw at Watford had the season looking like a slog; then Wolves were beaten 4-2, Derby 3-0 and Bolton 3-2, and we sit second in the Championship ahead of Friday night’s game against Wrexham. The development that has most changed what Nuno can do with this team is a player who wasn’t at the club a month ago.
Divine Mukasa arrived on loan from Manchester City on 21 August, was starting within eight days and has started every game from the Watford draw on, scoring twice against Wolves. ReadWestHam’s analysis of the Derby win put him and Arne Engels at the centre of the improved midfield balance. Nuno now has a selection problem he probably wants: a young player who’s getting very hard to drop.
Mukasa has given Nuno another dimension
What Mukasa brings is not pace or power so much as an appetite for the ball in the middle of the pitch. Against Derby he received centrally again and again, took it under pressure and looked forward first. That changes the shape of the attack. Bowen and Manor Solomon can stay wide and high because somebody is doing the linking work behind them, and Nuno has a way of getting the ball from midfield to the front three that he didn’t have in August.
Why Nuno may find it hard to leave him out
There’s a difference between a talented young player and one whose qualities change the structure of the team, and the Engels partnership is where Mukasa has shown he’s the second sort. Engels, signed from Celtic for £22m in August, gives Nuno positional discipline; with Mukasa beside him, one holds and one progresses, and West Ham controlled possession against Derby without leaving gaps behind. Take Mukasa out and Nuno either asks Engels to do both jobs or moves Bowen inside, and the width goes with Bowen. That’s a decision about the shape of the team, not about form.
From academy prospect to West Ham talking point
Mukasa is also coming home. Born in Newham, he joined the Academy of Football at six, made his under-18 debut at 14 and was in the FA Youth Cup-winning squad at 15 before Manchester City took him in 2023. He played six first-team games for City, one of them against West Ham, then went on loan to Leicester. When the club announced the loan, Nils Koppen called him “one of the brightest young talents in English football” and said his decade in the academy would help him settle. Three weeks on, he’s the player everyone is talking about.
The modern footballer is more than what happens on the pitch
His profile arrived before he did. Plenty of supporters had watched his Youth Cup clips and followed the Leicester loan before the paperwork was signed; that is how a young player’s name gets built now, on a screen as much as in a ground. The screen cuts both ways, though. Tuesday’s cup tie with Fulham is a 7.45 kick-off on Sky Sports+, and it has to compete for that evening with whatever else is open on the same phone, a box set as often as not, or even a tab of casino games, with a football-themed of course. A Championship club is grateful for anything that makes people pick the football, and a homegrown kid on a run like this does exactly that. That is the club’s concern rather than his. Mukasa’s own job is turning four good weeks into the consistency Nuno needs across 46 games.
What Mukasa’s emergence means for West Ham
Nuno has more attacking flexibility than he had in August, a creative outlet through the middle and a partnership that lets him control games. Sustaining it is the hard part, because young players dip, opponents adjust, and the Championship is unforgiving of anyone who only turns up in patches.
The biggest change may not be that Mukasa has become a regular starter. It’s that Nuno now has to account for what he offers whenever he builds a team. Mukasa has gone from promising addition to genuine selection consideration in under a month. In a season that has to end in promotion, that is one of the more useful things to have happened to Nuno’s rebuild.
