Mads Hermansen on West Ham's Relegation Battle
Mads Hermansen doesn’t sugar-coat it.
“You can see your career, it's going downwards, and you're about to get relegated.”
The memory of Leicester City’s fall from the Premier League still bites, and the West Ham goalkeeper has no interest in reliving it in claret and blue.
Relegation scars don’t fade quickly. Hermansen talks about them in the present tense, as if he’s still standing in that dressing room, watching a season slip away. “Being in those feelings and emotions as a group and as a club, it's really tough," he says. That experience now hangs over every game in this run-in.
From trauma to lifeline
West Ham’s 4-0 demolition of Wolves didn’t just boost goal difference. It changed the mood. It yanked their survival fight back into their own hands and, for the first time in weeks, allowed something close to optimism to creep in.
“We've been in this for quite many months,” Hermansen says of the club’s struggles. “The fear of where we might go, it's not easy to work in. But praise to everyone here at the club for keeping the spirits high and making us believe that we can turn it around.”
That win nudged West Ham out of the relegation zone for the first time in a month. The table still looks ugly, the margins still thin. Tottenham, Nottingham Forest, Leeds United – all are still glancing over their shoulders. This feels like a scrap that could go right to the final whistle of the season.
Hermansen is clear about what has to carry them through it.
“Our togetherness, our relationships between us,” he says when asked what gives this squad a chance. “Every single person gives their personality to the team and we have so many great characters here who are willing to give everything they can for the club.”
Dropped, doubted, and rebuilt
This season hasn’t just tested West Ham’s resolve. It has tested Hermansen’s.
The 25-year-old Denmark international arrived last summer with the No 1 shirt effectively promised. He was signed to start, to anchor a new era. Four Premier League games later, with 11 goals conceded, that plan was ripped up. Alphonse Areola took his place. Hermansen was out.
He disappeared from the league line-up until February 7 at Burnley. Before that, there was only a brief return in an FA Cup win over QPR in January. For a goalkeeper brought in to be first choice, it was a brutal jolt.
“I wanted to come in and prove to my team-mates, to the club and the fans that they made a good decision on getting me in, and of course the performances were not what I hoped for,” he admits. “I'm just happy I got another chance to show what I can do.”
He used the time away from the spotlight. Not sulking. Working.
“It was a tough time but I also got the chance to show what I'm made of and how disciplined and how hard I can work for a longer period,” he says. “I proved to myself what I really can do when things get tough.
“I'm proud of the work I did in that period and to be able to also bring it to the pitch, and together with the team having some great performances and also great results has been really nice.”
Since his return to the Premier League side, the numbers back that up: more saves than any other top-flight goalkeeper, four clean sheets in eight matches. This is what West Ham thought they were signing.
Learning to play without the weight
Hermansen describes himself as “quite an emotional guy”. That can be a strength in a dressing room, but in goal, with a season on the line, it can also be a burden.
“When things get emotional, I try to ask myself how can I take all this emotional stuff out of the football part of my life, and then just get my job done,” he explains. His checklist is simple: do everything he can, every day, so that when he goes to bed, he can say, “I did everything I could to improve and to show myself the best way possible.”
Those questions, he says, shaped him during his spell out of the team. “Those questions I had to ask myself in that period, I've really learned to bring that along now when I'm playing, which has helped me a lot.
“It's easy coming out of a tough period saying it was really good for me but I really learned a lot from it.”
The growth is obvious. The stakes are, too.
Hermansen and West Ham have dragged themselves back into the fight. The trauma of Leicester lingers in his mind, a warning as much as a memory. The difference this time? He feels ready for it.
“We believe a lot in ourselves,” he says. “It's going to get tough but we believe we have a lot to give.”
The fear of relegation hasn’t gone away. It’s just been met head-on.
