“You can see your career, it’s going down and you’re getting relegated. To be in those emotions and feelings as a group and as a club, it’s really tough.”
Mads Hermansen reflects on the pain of last season’s Premier League relegation with Leicester City. It is not an experience he wants to repeat with West Ham.
The goalkeeper is open and honest about the strain and pressure at the bottom of the Premier League.
But he says he has taken “a lot” of lessons from last season and, after West Ham’s thrashing 4-0 win over Wolves put their survival hopes in their own hands, there is now cautious optimism that the team’s “togetherness” can help them avoid the same fate as the Foxes.
“We’ve been in this for quite a few months,” Hermansen says of West Ham’s struggles this season. “The fear of where we can go, it’s not easy to work on. But credit to everyone here at the club for keeping spirits high and making us believe we can turn it around.”
West Ham moved out of the relegation zone for the first time in a month with that win over Wolves. But this looks like a game that could go down to the wire, with London rivals Tottenham, as well as Nottingham Forest and Leeds United far from certain.
If West Ham are to stay up, Hermansen believes that their unity will be decisive. “Our togetherness, our relationship between us,” he says when asked about the group’s strengths. “Every single person brings their personality to the team and we have so many great characters here who are willing to give everything they can for the club.”
It has been a season in which the Danish national team player Hermansen has also personally had to show resilience.
The highly-rated 25-year-old was signed last summer to be the Hammers’ No.1, but after just four Premier League games in which the side conceded 11 goals, he was dropped for Alphonse Areola.
He did not play again until an FA Cup win over QPR in January and had to wait until February 7 at Burnley for a Premier League comeback.
But since his reinstatement, he has made more saves than any other Premier League goalkeeper, keeping four clean sheets in eight games.
Hermansen has impressed since returning to the West Ham team at the start of February
“I wanted to go in and prove to my teammates, to the club and the fans that they made a good decision to bring me in, and of course the performances were not what I hoped for,” says Hermansen, reflecting on his difficult start. “I’m just glad 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 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 how hard I can work for a long period of time,” he said. “I proved to myself what I can really 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 with the team to have some great performances and also great results, it’s been really nice.”
Hermansen hits the ball clear of danger at Villa Park
What areas of his game did he focus on? “I’m quite an emotional guy and when things get emotional I try to ask myself how can I take all these emotional things out of the football part of my life and then just get my job done and do everything I can so that every night when I go to bed I can say to myself that I did everything I could to improve and show myself in the best possible way.
“The questions I had to ask myself during that period, I have really learned to take that with me now when I play, which has helped me a lot.
“It’s easy to come out of a tough period and say it was really good for me, but I really learned a lot from it.”
Hermansen, like West Ham, has returned stronger to the entrance. But he and his teammates are well aware that the job is not done yet.
“We believe in ourselves a lot,” he said. “It will be tough, but we believe we have a lot to give.”