New West Ham assistant coach Paco Jemez has clarified his touchline spat with head coach Nuno Espirito Santo during the win over Sunderland at the weekend.

Jemez, 55, was seen in a heated exchange with Espirito Santo and then walked to the bench as West Ham defender Max Kilman prepared to enter the pitch in the 94th minute of the team’s 3-1 home win over Sunderland on Saturday.

“I’m used to things getting blown out of proportion with me, to people taking things too far, and everything being magnified,” Jemez told Spanish radio RNE when asked about the episode.

“It’s a football situation where he tells me to do one thing and I tell him the substitution wasn’t bad, but that I would have put someone else. These are football situations that happen on the pitch, but at no point did I reprimand him or anything.

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“I understand that he’s the boss and he brought me here so I could give my opinion and so that, even if he thinks he might do something else, if I’m convinced of something, I’ll keep telling him.

“Ultimately, he’s the one who always makes the final decision, and I’m going to respect what he says, but he brought me to England not to be silent, but to tell him what I think and, above all, to help him.”

Jemez joined Espirito Santo’s backroom staff on January 15 shortly after leaving UD Ibiza and having managed over 500 games in his two decades in Spain, Mexico and Iran.

Since his arrival, the Hammers have won back-to-back league games against Tottenham and Sunderland to boost their hopes of defending their Premier League status with the side one place and five points adrift of safety heading into Saturday’s game at Chelsea.