Photo by Jannes Glas on Unsplash.
On the 6th of May 2024, West Ham United announced that David Moyes would leave the club, after four and a half years. Some fans had demanded the club to sack Moyes, as terrible performances and results happened towards the end of the season. This led to speculation about who could replace the Scotsman as the manager. 2 months later, it was revealed that Spanish coach Julen Lopetegui would take over, and straight away, got to work with buying players for the east London side. Alongside technical director Tim Steidten, the club spent almost £120m on new signings, with the likes of Aaron Wan-Bissaka from Manchester United, Crysencio Summervile from Leeds United, and Maximilian Kilman. Fans couldn’t believe that the club were doing business, and some were very optimistic about the new season coming in, with many saying “I cannot believe that we are making major signings, it seems like we never do over the past few seasons.”
With the new season arriving, many supporters were buzzing about the new regime at the club, with West Ham playing their opening game against Aston Villa, at their home ground, The London Stadium. It was a good first half performance from The Hammers, but unfortunately, it ended in a 2-1 loss to the visitors, courtesy of an Amadou Onana header, followed by a Jhon Duran winner, another player who was rumored to be heading to East London. So far, fans seem to be happy with the style of play, and they were more than happy when they played their next game against Crystal Palace, a team who had a brilliant second half of the season. West Ham won 2-0. It was after this game, however, that things changed from a West Ham point of view.
Although they defeated newly promoted side Ipswich 4-1, a poor run of results would come in from a West Ham point of view. After the 2-0 victory against Palace, they played Man City and lost 3-1, lost to Liverpool 5-1 in the Carabao Cup, drawing to Fulham AND Brentford 1-1, and as of recent, losing 4-1 to Tottenham. So, it comes the question. As of recently, are the results and performances down to the manager and his tactics, or are the players just simply not putting in the performances that the fans want? At the time of typing this piece, West Ham sit 15th in the league, 1 point behind Leicester City and level on points with Everton.
Recently, reports have come out that West Ham star Mohammed Kudus nearly got into a fight with the manager Lopetegui, which was reported by West Ham insider ExWHUEmployee. The Ghanaian was singled out after a poor first half performance against Brentford, which asks the question on why something like this is happening, seeing as you don’t often get arguments with players and managers behind the scenes, especially on a match day. Just recently, Kudus picked up a red card when West Ham played Spurs, putting his hands on the face of Micky van de Ven and Richarlison.
Photo by David Clarke on Unsplash.
When fans wanted David Moyes out, their reasoning was their style of play, backwards and sideways passing constantly, something you would see a lot during Gareth Southgate’s time with England. But it’s fair to say that we are sort of seeing that same style of football, even with a new manager, despite the money being used for these new signings. “I feel like David Moyes hasn’t left, it’s the same style of football as before. I haven’t seen any change at all.” It hasn’t been all gloom, as it took Aaron Wan-Bissaka about 4 games into the new season to get a first start, Crysencio Summervile will NOW get a start due to Kudus’ 3 game ban against Tottenham for recieving a straight red, and Niclas Füllkrug currently out injured. In my opinion, from a fan’s point of view, I think it is the manager that is causing this, and not the players. It’s clear his tactics aren’t good enough, especially with the amount of quality talent in this West Ham squad. Lopetegui is on the ropes, and his tenure at West Ham United will most likely come to an end, if they lose ‘El Sackico’ to Gary O’Neil’s Wolves, another manager who has been struggling to get results, and could get sacked if Wolves lose.
