Now we are told that another ‘must-win’ game appears on the horizon against Wolverhampton Wanderers next week. Despite Lopetegui’s failure to win a ‘must-win’ Everton fixture fixture before the international break. And losing the ‘must-win’ Leicester City game last week. And being thrashed by Arsenal the week before.
Quite clearly ‘must-win’ as you and I know it doesn’t mean ‘must-win’ to the West Ham Chairman.
More like ‘Hope Lopetegui does just enough to avoid the sack irrespective of the damage caused to the club, the fans and player morale in the meantime’.
It transpires that the ‘dressing room unrest’ which was played down by the club is actually a huge issue and Lopetegui clearly cannot ‘manage’ his squad. To fall out with one player – the first we heard about was Mohammed Kudus against Brentford – might be put down to Kudus’ frustrations and youthful impetuosity. But several? ‘Management failure’ written all over it.
To find that Jean-Clair Todibo has been banished from the squad and is training with the youngsters – a player who West Ham have on loan with an option to buy for about thirty million quid- is a warning that this head coach cannot lead his squad. Further ‘revelations’ and cryptic comments from Niclas Fullkrug point to criticism with Lopetegui’s systems and we hear also Edson Alvarez wants to leave if Lopetegui stays.
And under these dark clouds, Lopetegui continues to try and coach a squad that is fractured, clinging on to a job purely for the severance pay – whilst the West Ham board refuse to sack him presumably for the same issue. What kind of preparation will this depleted ‘squad’ be undertaking before the Wolves game.
Pretty poisonous, I’d say. All of which could have been avoided by sending the man on his way during the international break. Or at any stage in the last 3 days. And planning for a successor instead of scrabbling around frantically in the last 48 hours trying to find a replacement who will come for a cheap six month deal.
How many decent players will be on the phone to their agents demanding an exit? What hope for recruiting any half-decent players in January – or indeed, attracting a new head coach. Would anybody actually relish coming to this club which is riven by board disharmony, factions, leaks and misinformation?
Show some leadership at West Ham ‘United’ and end this dreadful situation.
We know this is the dildo salesman’s website. You are a fraud. Can you please do an article as to why Brady claims she worked for Saachi & Saachi when it didn’t? Scum.
What a bunch of f*****g garbage, I hope dwarf scum gets what he deserves in the end.
Flopetegui should have been sacked on the spot after Chelsea loss let alone still being here.
GSB SCUM OUT!!!!!!
Any other club he would have gone, but at West Ham it becomes a soap opera. After 60+ years of supporting West Ham, I am slowly moving toward just watching football for the game regardless of league position, country of origin etc..
Nobes apparently generated some team spirit by playing golf with team mates on days off & clapping his hands & pointing when he was on the pitch but I wouldn´t want him to be caretaker for more than a couple of games.
I don´t think he´s taken any badges which shows lack of motivation.
As to his player judgement. He went out on a very long limb to say Grady Diangana should be retained but look at his subsequent career. West Brom would rather have kept their 18mn quid and not have bought Grady.
Replacing JL doesn´t have to be expensive.
I really rate the Bournemouth manager who´s on 1mn pa so 500k for 6 months.
Its incredibly unlikely he´d be attracted to the London Stadium but I imagine Pearl Diver Tim has a database of similar managers. Lots would be attracted to being in the EPL shop window for half a season
But the Bournemouth manager, Andoni Iraola, is already well and truly in the EPL shop window for the brilliant job he is doing there. Why would he soil his reputation by moving to the London Stadium right now?
If West Ham were still at the Boleyn Ground then you could call this ‘A Nightmare On Green Street’. I don’t know what you can call it at London Stadium, other than bringing the greater game into disrepute.
I do wish outsiders could be called in. Can the Board be taken away in straight jackets and locked up? Maybe just the chairman would do!
Sullivan and the board have just shown that us fans mean absolutely nothing to them apart wanting our cash by not sacking our manager this is our club not theres they cant take that away from us
Well Sullivan does his normal and will not own up to making a mistake and sack him, the same old story. The only way Sullivan takes notice is when people keep away.
Superb article. How much longer do we as supporters and the players have to put up with this fiasco. Are the board on a totally different planet to the rest of us, can they not see how much damage this is doing to our club. As you so rightly say players will now be contacting their agents and wanting out, then what will the precious board do. Do they really want us to slide down the leagues. It is truly amazing that any manager who has so much talent at his fingertips is unable to put a team together after four months. If you don’t know where your strengths and weaknesses are after all this time, you should not be managing any football team be it Premier League or Sunday League.
Sullivan is taking us all for mugs.
I wish him and that christmas tree he sits next too both do one in the new year!
Has made us a joke.
The situation is as if insane. If it’s not obvious now that Lopetegui has to go when will it ever be ? The all round incompetence is quite beyond any belief. We have a manager who obviously cannot manage the team and a board that cannot manage the non management.
The situation is as if insane, is any other club incompetent to this degree ? It would take some doing.
We do not deserve this, nobody deserves such utter shambles. There are those refusing to go on Monday night, they do not deserve that. There are those hoping that we are soundly beaten to bring matters to a head for the best in the longer term, they do not deserve that. There’s going to be massive discontent and a toxic atmosphere that nobody deserves.
It does not seem any better for a nights sleep, it is like an assault on our good nature. It is so bad that it’s beyond bad it’s as if it’s insane.
Great points John and completely agree. I completely understand and share the same anger and frustration at the complete shambles and mis-management at our club. However I do fear the effects of the toxic atmosphere on players and young reserves on Monday night if this boils over and we see another Burnley. Imagine playing in that atmosphere and getting boos everytime someone makes a mistake or misses a pass. We desperately need those 3 points as they could mean the difference between relegation and staying up this season so no I do not want to see us getting heavily just to get rid of the manager. No prospective manager or new signing in the January window will want to be part of that which could further damage our club.
Please leave the boos and protests until the end and get behind our team. None of us want to be in this position but all the negativity and anger will not change anything until at least the final whistle. I am fuming at what is happening but it’s obvious that the board will not change their decision in the next 72 hours.
I completely understand and share the same anger and frustration at the complete shambles and mis-management at our club. However I do fear the effects of the toxic atmosphere on players and young reserves on Monday night if this boils over and we see another Burnley. Imagine playing in that atmosphere and getting boos everytime someone makes a mistake or misses a pass. We desperately need those 3 points as they could mean the difference between relegation and staying up this season so no I do not want to see us getting heavily beaten just to get rid of the manager. We are even arguing between ourselves now and some fellow supporters getting stick when they disagree with other’s views. No prospective manager or new signing in the January window will want to be part of that which could further damage our club.
None of us want to be in this position, but all the non stop negativity and anger will not change anything until at least the final whistle. I am bloody fuming at what is happening and want him out but it’s obvious that the board will not change their decision in the next 72 hours.
Guys. The only way to resolve our issues is to do what i did, vote with your feet!
I slung my season ticket back the year we won the conference cup because in the second half of that season the league games at home were awful and not remotely entertaining.
Have attended 2 home games this year and nothing has changed under Loopy.
The bubble at C.Half is an accident waiting to happen and Torbido’s training with the kids because he expressed an opinion, is this true?. Of course we don’t want players running the club but it surely couldn’t be any worse than Sully.
Stay away a half empty stadium for home games might bring him to his senses!
👏👏👏👏👏👍
Just some facts .
no west ham player has publicly criticised the manager .
if we had beaten Leicester as we should have we would be only 2 points behind spurs and Newcastle.
Very few hammers fans would have been disappointed with the performance against Leicester the finishing yes but not the performance
So let’s get behind them for the wolves game.
COYI
Great sentiment Carrick hammer. Wish there were more comments like yours reflecting reality. Well done. You have made my day.
COYI
So there is nothing wrong then?
Spot on! To quote Bob Marley…..
Exodus!
Movement of Jah people! Oh, yeah!
Staying away and hitting Sullivan where it hurts the most seems the only way to enforce him to listen to the fans!
Couldn’t agree more. The historic ineptitude of West Ham to take these situations by the scruff of the neck and make grown up, hard-headed and timely decisions is mind boggling. It goes back before Sullivan to Terence Brown, surely one of the most incompetent top flight football chairmen ever. There is this amateurish “Sunday league” culture that has always been at the core of West Ham, and not even Kretinsky can do anything about it.
Martin, you hit the nail on the head regard leadership. It is severely lacking throughout the club. Sullivan is e resembling an ostrich, Kretinsky is a ‘hands off’ investor, the Gold family want out (and given their investment is inherited, not sought, it is a reasonable decision), the remaining shareholders are minor investors and shouldn’t have any say bar Brady as CEO (and I’m never sure of what her input on football matters is, I was of the belief she was running the business side of West Ham).
Steidten was, as I understand it, supposed to be much more of a decision maker and leader from the football side but is noticeably absent as the pressure and negative publicity has built up. To be fair, this may be down to him not having the control he wants due to Sullivan neutering him, but equally he was very happy being front and centre in pre-season and the first few weeks of the season.
JLo……nothing required to be said really, but he is it a leader. Reminds me of Captain Bligh on Mutiny on The Bounty (showing my age!)
Jarrod…….great guy, a good club captain in representing the club off field but I haven’t seen anything which makes me think he is a leader on the pitch.
Other than that we’re fine 🙂
What is pretty poisonous is the constant click bate from amateur journalists across social media and the internet. They are the people who amplified the calls for Moyes to be replaced because of his style of football. They got whatthey wanted.
The minimum you should give a new manager is half a season, but instead, the same experts who did for Moyes have been all over Lopetegui from his appointment, it wasn’t the superstar name they wanted. Well guess what, the constant carping and the negative atmosphere it produces around the club and it’s supporters isn’t going to attract the type of manager you are looking for.
It really is time that people shut up, support the team and give the manager and team a bit of quiet until until after the Liverpool match. Then make a judgment. But of course some don’t want that, because they are the experts who have decided that this manager is going to fail and they will write, speak and shout whatever they like to help him on his way.
I do worry about the Wolverhampton match because the damage done by all this negative noise may well have done for him anyway. The big benefit all our amateur experts have, is they face few consequences if it all goes wrong this season.
The problem is that, such is the competitiveness of the PL, you don’t have time to dither, if the signs are bad (and it can’t be denied that they are bad). Before you know it, you’re in the full throes of a relegation battle.
It’s a results business. The ‘noise’ you speak about is irrelevant. If the owner was bothered about that he’d never have appointed the current manager in the first place.
He will still only appoint from the dole queue and will still appoint the one he thinks is the ‘safest’ option. Regardless of any noise made.
I understand your comment legin to a certain point. Moyes bought stability to the football side of things and a trophy. In my eyes a he is almost a legend. But he was master of his own downfall and stayed a season too long. Fans called for him to go because we were getting battered week in week out at the end of his tenture due to his own stubbornness. Loppy most definitely hasn’t started well either, continuing with the getting battered every week. There are signs, especially two of the last three games, Newcastle was spot on. Leicester we were on front foot most of the game but in my opinion the failing to sign an adequate striker cost us that match along with playing a high line against a team who rely on opponents playing a high line. The problem for me is player unrest. Having bust ups with players and making them feel like they don’t want to be there. Being unable to control or communicate effectively with the players is such poor management and immediately causes many problems. It would be the same in any job in any industry. If I did the same to some of my staff the place would be toxic and performance levels would drop and no one would want to be there. Jurgen klopp is a perfect example of top man management, look at the way he was loved by his players. Liverpool went out on the pitch and put in maximum effort for him and reaped the rewards. So for that reason alone I think loppy has to go.
Brooksy, that is an excellent response to Legin’s naive comments. Couldn’t have said it better myself. Thank you!
Naive; okay….. disagreening with the narrative, based on over 50 years experience of supporting West Ham most of the as a ST holder, maybe something you disagree with, but it is not niave.
You don’t have to click on it, you know. Nor do you have to read it.
You say ‘should’ give the new manager half a season.
I disagree.
When he is causing millions of pounds’ worth of players to want ‘out’ and getting zero success on the pitch, why would you wait? Until Bowen leaves? Until Kudus, Paqueta and Summerville leave too?
Yes you are correct, I don’t have to click on it. In fact I have been so dissapointed with the quality and tone of this site, over the last year, that I stopped. Thanks for the reminder, we won’t miss each other I am sure.
So the players are running West Ham now.
What do you actually want our club to do.
You think changing managers every time you experts aren’t happy.
You I’m afraid are delusional ones here
is that you Sully??
Have you been reading ‘Football Club Ownership for Dummies’ too? Maybe you got a signed copy from Mr Sullivan.
Toxic Chairman chose a poisonous coach ☢️☠️
They deserve each other, but the fans deserve better!
JLo has lost the players and the fans but still has the support of Sullivan.
The players want out if JLo stays and the fans will soon stay away and not renew season tickets if he stays.
Sullivan’s toxicity will spread to the stadium and the Wolves game live on Sky will be a cauldron of discontent at the Chairman and coach.
It didn’t have to be this way Sully but again your incompetence has created discontent with the fans fury about to be unleashed.
Mate of mine me turned round and said after Füllkrug scored, “that goal’s just saved Lopi’s bacon for another game.”
The Hammer Hobbit will do anything to avoid paying out compensation so he hangs on in blind faith, not seeing the performances, not listening to the players, not hearing the fans.
A proper revolt is needed.
The board could get around this quite easily, appoint Mark Noble in charge of the 1st team for the foreseeable future, re hire Kevin Nolan as assistant coach whilst then taking their time to find hopefully the right replacement head coach, and ensure Kevin Nolan is kept on as part of the coaching team when a new head coach is appointed
That’s exactly it ..playing bad is one thing but how can you get round this problem with our best players…I hope we lose to wolves tbh …hopefully then he will go ..they know there’s every chance we will win ..then it will just drag on and by then the season is to short g
For a new management to do something…absolute circus …DONT GO TO THE GAMES PROTEST WITH YOUR FEET
How did sully make his money?. I can only presume that he has people around him in his businesses that told him to sit in the corner and play with his toys while they got on with the day job. Because let’s face it if he ran his business like he runs West Ham he would be bankrupt in days .
Maybe Brady is waiting for Spurs to fire Postecoglou after they lose on Sunday.