"You can see your career slipping away, and the threat of relegation is looming. As a team and a club, it's a really challenging experience," Mads Hermansen reflects on his painful Premier League relegation experience with Leicester City last season, an ordeal he hopes to avoid with West Ham. The goalkeeper openly discusses the strain and pressure of being at the bottom of the Premier League.
However, he claims to have learned valuable lessons from last season, and after 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 the Foxes. "We've been in this situation for many months now. The fear of what might happen is not easy to deal with, but credit to everyone at the club for keeping our spirits high and making us believe we can turn things around," Hermansen says about West Ham's struggles this season.
With their win over Wolves, West Ham moved out of the relegation zone for the first time in a month, but this battle seems likely to go down to the wire, with London rivals Tottenham, as well as Nottingham Forest and Leeds United, not yet safe. If West Ham are to stay up, Hermansen believes their unity will be crucial.
"Our togetherness, the relationships between us, every single person brings their personality to the team, and we have many great characters here who are willing to give everything for the club," he says when asked about the group's strengths. It has been a season where Denmark international Hermansen has had to show personal resilience as well. After being signed as the Hammers' No 1 last summer, he 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 performances were not what I had hoped for. I'm just happy I got another chance to show what I can do," Hermansen reflects on his difficult start.
Hermansen is proud of how he used his time out of the team to improve his game, so he was ready to step up when needed. "It was a tough time, 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. 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 bring it to the pitch, and together with the team, have some great performances and results has been really nice." Focusing on his emotional management, Hermansen says, "I'm quite 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.
Those questions I had to ask myself in that period, I've really learned to bring along now when I'm playing, which has helped me a lot." 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.
It's going to get tough, but we believe we have a lot to give."