West Ham turn to Scott Parker, a promotion specialist for a Championship problem

West Ham are not choosing a manager for the Premier League this week. They are choosing one for the Championship, and that changes how the reported move from Nuno Espírito Santo to Scott Parker should be read. Parker has not been confirmed. The club said it was recruiting, and Mark Noble, Steve Potts and Gerard Prenderville are in temporary charge for the trip to Cardiff on Wednesday. Reports from the BBC, Sky Sports and others say West Ham have approached him and talks are advanced.

What Nuno left behind

Nuno was sacked on Tuesday with West Ham 8th in the Championship, a season after finishing 18th and going down. The team had 6 wins in the league and sits 6 points behind Middlesbrough and 4 behind Swansea in second. That is a promotion chase still alive, not a collapse, and it explains why the board did not wait for the gap to grow.

The last two results explain the timing. West Ham lost 3-2 at home to Southampton on 24 Oct and then 3-1 at home to West Brom. Two home defeats in a division where the top two go up automatically, and a long list of clubs spend the winter chasing them, is the kind of run that ends a tenure that began under a three-year deal.

Why Parker fits the job

Parker's case rests on one thing: he has taken a team out of this division three times. Fulham went up through the play-offs after finishing 4th, and Bournemouth and Burnley each finished 2nd and were promoted automatically. Few managers in English football can point to that record at three different clubs, and it is exactly the credential a club in 8th place with its eyes on the top two needs.

The Premier League record is the other half of the argument, and it is less kind. His Fulham sides were relegated twice, and his Bournemouth spell ended in a sacking early in the following season. His Burnley team went down after he won promotion with them. The pattern is a manager whose methods suit the Championship, where a settled, well-drilled side can grind out results over 46 games, and whose sides struggled when the opposition got better.

That matters for West Ham because the question is not whether Parker can keep them up. The question is whether he can get them back up, and then whether the club will give him a summer to build a squad for the top flight, rather than hand him the same short window it gave others.

The real test

The risk is the one West Ham have run before. Replacing a manager in November because of two home defeats is a reset, and a reset only becomes a plan if the next appointment gets time and a recruitment process that matches his style. Parker arrives with a record of fixing a Championship side quickly. The board's job is to make sure the fix lasts past the promotion party.