West Ham do not appear to have been blown away here. That is almost the problem. When a side is still waiting for a first league victory, respectable afternoons stop feeling like progress unless they end with three points.
Nuno’s teams are usually judged on structure, discipline and control. Those qualities may still be forming, but control without a killer edge leaves matches open. If the Hammers are staying in games but not finishing them off, the pressure builds quickly.
Early-season narratives can harden fast. One win changes the mood; another draw keeps the same questions alive.
That is why this feels like a missed chance as much as a rescued result. A team trying to settle under a manager needs one clean, convincing league win to quiet the noise. Until then, every match gets framed as another test of nerve.
The update describes a gritty game in front of Vicarage Road’s biggest crowd for six years, and that matters. Home atmospheres like that can make simple moments feel rushed and tight. Watford seem to have dragged the contest into exactly that kind of fight, and West Ham were not quite clinical enough to take control of the story.
The next fixture now carries extra weight. West Ham do not need panic, but they do need a result that looks and feels decisive - otherwise the wait for that first league win becomes the season’s first real theme.