“You can see your career, it’s going downwards, and you’re about to get relegated. Being in those feelings and emotions as a group and as a club, it’s really tough.”
Mads Hermansen is reflecting on the pain of last season’s relegation with Leicester and says it’s not something he wants to repeat at West Ham. The goalkeeper admits the strain of fighting at the bottom of the Premier League is severe, but says he has learned “a lot” from that period and believes those lessons can help now.
After West Ham’s 4-0 win over Wolves put their survival hopes in their own hands, Hermansen stressed cautious optimism and praised the club for keeping spirits high. “We’ve been in this for quite many months,” he said. “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.”
West Ham moved out of the relegation zone for the first time in a month with the victory, but Hermansen accepts the battle could go to the wire. He believes the team’s unity will be crucial: “Our togetherness, our relationships between us. 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.”
Hermansen’s season has required personal resilience. Signed last summer to be West Ham’s No 1, he was dropped after four Premier League games in which the team conceded 11 goals and replaced by Alphonse Areola. He did not play again until an FA Cup tie against QPR in January and had to wait until February 7 at Burnley for his Premier League comeback.
Since his reinstatement he has made more saves than any other Premier League goalkeeper and kept four clean sheets in eight matches. Reflecting on his difficult start, he said: “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. I’m just happy I got another chance to show what I can do.”
Hermansen says he is proud of how he used his time out of the team to improve and prepare. “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 explained. “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.”
He added he has worked on managing his emotions to focus on his job: “I’m quite an emotional guy and 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… 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.”
Hermansen and his teammates have come back stronger for the run-in, but he is clear the work is not finished. “We believe a lot in ourselves,” he said. “It’s going to get tough but we believe we have a lot to give.”