"Seeing your career decline and facing relegation is a daunting experience. It's challenging for the team and the club to navigate these emotions." Mads Hermansen reflects on the agony of Premier League relegation with Leicester City, an experience he hopes to avoid with West Ham.
The goalkeeper openly discusses the strain of being at the bottom of the Premier League. However, he claims to have learned valuable lessons from last season. Following West Ham's decisive 4-0 victory over Wolves, which put their survival in their own hands, there is cautious optimism that the team's unity can help them avoid the same fate as Leicester.
"We've been in this situation for months," Hermansen says about West Ham's struggles. "The fear of our potential fate is not easy to work with. However, credit to everyone at the club for maintaining high spirits and helping us believe we can turn things around." West Ham exited the relegation zone for the first time in a month with the win over Wolves.
This battle may go down to the wire, with London rivals Tottenham, Nottingham Forest, and Leeds United not yet safe. If West Ham is to stay up, Hermansen believes their unity will be crucial. "Our togetherness, the relationships between us," he says when asked about the team's strengths.
"Every person brings their personality to the team, and we have great characters willing to give everything for the club." It has been a season where Hermansen has had to personally demonstrate resilience. The Denmark international was signed last summer as West Ham's No 1 but was dropped for Alphonse Areola after just four Premier League games, in which the team conceded 11 goals.
He didn't play again until a FA Cup win over QPR in January and had to wait until February 7 at Burnley for a Premier League comeback. Since his return, he has made more saves than any other Premier League goalkeeper and kept four clean sheets in eight matches. "I wanted to prove to my teammates, the club, and the fans that they made a good decision in signing me, and of course, the initial performances were not what I hoped for," says Hermansen, reflecting on his difficult start. "I'm 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 his game so he was ready when needed.
"It was tough, but I also got the chance to show what I'm made of and how disciplined and hard I can work for a longer period," he said. "I proved to myself what I can do when things get tough." "I'm proud of the work I did during that period and to be able to bring it to the pitch, and together with the team, having some great performances and results has been really nice." What areas of his game did he focus on? "I'm an emotional guy, and when things get emotional, I try to ask myself how I can separate the emotional aspect from the football part of my life and just get my job done, so every night I can say to myself, I did everything I could to improve and show myself the best way possible." "Those questions I had to ask myself during 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." Hermansen, like West Ham, has come back stronger for the run-in. But he and his teammates are well aware the job isn't done yet.
"We believe a lot in ourselves," he said. "It's going to get tough, but we believe we have a lot to give." Play Super 6 for a chance to win £250k! Enter for free.