The Premier League is a basket of crabs. Each year, a team emerges and shakes up the established hierarchy. While the Big 6 is more or less still there, Brighton, Newcastle and Aston Villa have joined in the dance in recent years. This is also the case for West Ham. Rather considered a one-off scratch, the Hammers have also had their share of disappointments with several times high-quality squads who have done nothing in the Premier League.
This season, the London club would like to avoid such a mishap. Indeed, to enhance an already impressive workforce, several major recruitments were made this summer. Thus, Jean-Clair Todibo, Carlos Soler, Guido Rodriguez, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Crysencio Summerville and Niklas Füllkrug have notably come to strengthen the London ranks. A rich reinforcement which will force Julen Lopetegui to succeed no matter how. With impatient English leaders, the Spaniard will not have time to miss his first season with the residents of the Olympic stadium in London.
Julen Lopetegui is already being singled out with West Ham
However, the beginnings of the former Spain coach are frankly worrying. Indeed, currently 14th in the rankings across the Channel, the Hammers have completely missed the start of the season. Starting with a cruel defeat at home against Aston Villa, Lucas Paqueta’s teammates redeemed themselves by beating Crystal Palace the following week (0-2). Finally, the Hammers fell back into their ways with a defeat against Manchester City (1-3), a draw against Fulham (1-1) and a big defeat against Chelsea (3-0). To make matters worse, after eliminating Bournemouth by the narrowest of margins in the previous round, the Hammers were thrown out of the EFL Cup this week being largely dominated by Liverpool (5-1).
From then on, the first criticism fell on Julen Lopetegui. Hunted out this summer after a mixed first experience in England with Wolverhampton, the 58-year-old Spaniard is expected to turn the corner. At a press conference, the Iberian technician responded to his detractors and returned to the worrying defeat against Liverpool this week: “It’s always difficult to have one less player in a match. It’s true that we did very good things for 75 minutes, but it was a very different end to the match after the red card. We did some positive things in my opinion and we were close to winning the game. The boys worked really hard for 75 minutes but we have to accept the result.” Therefore, we should not miss out on the former goalkeeper this weekend. In a London derby against Brentford, the Spaniard will be expected at the turn and West Ham will have to regain control of their chaotic start to the season…
