Julen Lopetegui OFFICIALLY given his marching orders
West Ham United have officially parted ways with head coach Julen Lopetegui.
The former Real Madrid and Spain manager arrived at the Hammers’ Rush Green training ground today, fully expecting to be dismissed, so his departure comes as little surprise. In truth, Lopetegui has been aware since before the Premier League defeat to Manchester City that his time in the West Ham hot seat was nearing an end.
The Spaniard unexpectedly led training today. However, as reported earlier on Claret and Hugh, Graham Potter is expected to oversee the Hammers’ final training session tomorrow ahead of their FA Cup tie against Aston Villa.
Lopetegui’s tenure at West Ham, which began in the summer, has been plagued by difficulties, and he has clearly reached a point where he was unable to advance the club beyond the foundations laid by former manager David Moyes.
The club released the following statement:
West Ham United can confirm that Head Coach Julen Lopetegui has today left the Club.
The first half of the 2024/25 season has not aligned with the Club’s ambitions and the Club has therefore taken action in line with its objectives.
The Club can confirm that Assistant Head Coach Pablo Sanz, Head of Performance Oscar Caro, Head Analyst Juan Vicente Peinado, Fitness Coach Borja De Alba and Technical Coach Edu Rubio have also left with immediate effect.
The Board would like to thank Julen and his staff for their hard work during their time with the Hammers and wish them every success for the future.
The process of appointing a replacement is underway.
The Club will be making no further comment at this time.
While it’s good that he’s finally gone, I don’t like the way the board have handled it, why let him train the players this morning if the board planned to sack him this afternoon?
Excellent article from The Guardian and totally nailed it. Let’s hope for an end to the constant negativity and infighting surrounding our great club so we can all get behind Potter and his new coaching team.
Shameful the way it’s all been handled.
You can always rely on The Guardian to set it all out clearly: –
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/jan/08/lopetegui-west-ham-challenges-for-graham-potter
What’s done is done and while it wasn’t the way most of us would have done it I hope we can move forward now and support the team and boss without the negativity. Potter will need the rest of the season to get the team working so no overly high expectations immediately.
Perhaps we should have eased him out of the door with a feather duster, poor bloke will only get millions in compensation, while I as a season ticket holder won’t get bugger all for enduring the last six months , hopefully we might start playing football again, and all shut the **** up , too many negative waves going on , we will regain our composure and loopy will disappear into the history books of has beens .
So it’s goodbye loopy dago and hello Beatrix, we will probably end up with Peter rabbit up front and Jemima puddleduck in goal?
At last, yes the delays were all unnecessary, but nobody involved can claim the moral high ground in this sorry saga. Onwards and upwards, expectations rekindled and hoping that the players will respond well to the changes. The good news is that the rest of the EPL has been waiting for us to catch up so let’s hope Potter & Co. can make it happen.
Not a day for pride in the club. Yes he needed to go it was way more than obvious that he needed to go but there are ways and ways. From many of the comments here today most seem to be of a mind so I’ll cut it short there.
Best of luck to Lopetegui and his coaching team, I’m sure that they can do a job somewhere, the premier league is a high unforgiving level.
shocking the way westham have gone about it, until sullivan and co go it will always be like this.
He lasted about a fortnight longer than I thought he would , so due credit there, we should now do better without a cardboard cutout in charge , I think season ticket holders should be entitled to some kind of compensation for having to endure the last six months or how ever long it has been , hopefully the neighbours will stop mocking me as well
I’ve been a West Ham supporter for 60 years, season ticket holder home and away for a considerable time. I’m ashamed of how our board treat people who are without doubt trying to do their best for the team, and that includes both David Moyes and Julen Lopetegui. The David Moyes era had run its course and my instinct is that Sullivan had Loppy lined up long in advance of Moyes’s demise. Now we have this saga, where info is leaked to the media and a small group of ITK’s to satisfy the ego of somebody very high on the club Board. I have never been a huge supporter of the ‘Sullivan out’ mob, particularly as he and David Gold (R.I.P.) did save the club from administration, but the treatment of both Moyes and Lopetegui is shameful.
This story looks like a copy/paste from the BBC page and who was the first to report this?
Old news🤣🤣🤣🤣⚒️⚒️⚒️⚒️
At the end I was no fan of J Lo or his brand of football, but I’m very uneasy at how his dismissal has been managed by West Ham hierarchy.
Whole thing smacks of a lack of class- I think J Lo and his management team at least deserved to be treated with respect.
HammerRush, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been fired a few times, often for reasons that were nothing to do with my performance. I have been given no notice, 30 minutes to clear my desk/locker etc. and leave the building, with minimal payoff and very little respect or dignity in sight.
This coaching staff have woefully under-performed, not met expectations, they knew the writing was on the wall, and will leave with healthy pay-offs.
let us hope Potter plays the team in their correct positions and brings some of our excellent youth into the squad and actually gives them time on the pitch
Is there no shame with Sullivan and co,I love this club but the whole process has been disgraceful