It started with a sucker punch. Then came another, before a third blow that left West Ham United head coach Nuno Espirito Santo reeling and only sporadically rising from his seat in the dugout as he watched his side capitulate.

The only thing missing from West Ham’s bench on Saturday was a white towel to throw in surrender during Saturday’s 3-0 defeat by last-placed Wolverhampton Wanderers. Goals in the space of 37 minutes from Jhon Arias, Hwang Hee-chan and Mateus Mane sealed Wolves’ first win, and clean sheet, of this Premier League season.

West Ham have conceded 41 goals in the league in the campaign so far, the highest total in the division and their most after 20 games in a top-flight season since 44 in 1965-66. Even with Rob Edwards’ home side propping up the league and already near-certainties for relegation at 12 points from safety, they showed more fight and desire than their guests from east London.

Two of Wolves’ three victories in all competitions this season have come against West Ham, including a Carabao Cup tie back in August. It is why the home fans chorused, “Can we play you every week?” yesterday.

In this chastening encounter, West Ham were as disinterested, disjointed and toothless as in their previous defeat against Fulham last weekend. Forget a glove, they failed to lay a feather on their opponents, not even registering a shot on target against the weakest team in the top flight. You felt Nuno’s players might have produced more sweat jogging off the pitch at the end than over the duration of the match itself.

West Ham have not won a league game since beating Burnley in November and now host fellow relegation candidates Nottingham Forest on Tuesday night. Frustration and anger gripped the away enclosure yesterday as Tomas Soucek, Ollie Scarles, Kyle Walker-Peters and Crysencio Summerville looked on. As for Nuno, after the final whistle, the head coach forlornly walked down the tunnel, failing to commit to his usual away tradition of applauding the travelling supporters.

“A lot of things went wrong today,” the former Wolves boss admitted in the post-match interview about his current team’s display. “We started the game badly, we made mistakes, we conceded, and we didn’t react. It was a very poor performance. I have to apologise to the fans. I have to apologise. We have to apologise to the fans. Those that travelled today, (our performance) was embarrassing. There’s not much I can say other than we are sorry. We are sorry, because what we showed today was not good enough.

“Personally, I didn’t expect this performance. We have recently been playing good — not achieving results, but always being in the game. Today was the worst performance that we’ve had. We needed much more from our players. The way we started and the way we performed was very poor. It was embarrassing. I don’t recall a day that I’ve felt so bad on a football pitch like today.”