The first West Ham United manager/head coach to lose his first three home games. An embarrassing record for Lopetegui to hold. Ten out of the eleven players on the pitch would be most people’s pick of our ‘first team’. And embarrassing to be humiliated by Chelsea, who, let’s face it could have easily put six past us if they’d been motivated.
Lopetegui, running up and down the touchline, screaming at his players, substituting seemingly without a plan is something I didn’t think I’d see in this brave new world. Admitting that you’ve got it wrong and starting with the substitutions after about half an hour is an eye-opener. And whilst he was yelling at them, I was thinking ‘who created this shambles?’
Alvarez out of position, Mavropanos unable to deal with deep attackers, Wan-Bissaka playing as a right winger – half way up the pitch – what on earth was going on? The players seemed as lost in this ‘system’ as I was, trying to decode it.
As I stated after the game it looks like the Coach came up with it on the Team Bus.
The substitutions were just knee jerk – at least Moyes used an I-pad to pretend he knew what he was doing – taking off the best player of the first half was non-sensical, by the strength of the ‘booing’, I wasn’t alone in being angered by Summerville’s withdrawal – taking off the one bright spark just smacked of desperation.
I’m not a coach. But surely that system was ill thought out, poorly understood and completely trashed on-the-hoof by the Head Coach as players came and went: How Chelsea didn’t hit us on the break for a 4th, 5th and 6th goal is beyond me.
Guardian Journalist Jacob Steinberg didn’t mince his words on twitter, with a whole salvo of home truths:
‘This isn’t a refresh, It’s worse than before” says Steinberg: Along with “Mavropanos, for example, is a mistake a game‘.
Lopetegui needs to go and reflect on the basics: Get some solidity at the back with a system which the players understand. That’d be a starting point.
Work it out.
We were repeatedly caught too advanced left defenders exposed. That’s not the fault of individual players it’s either a fault of the system or of the team not playing the system properly.
We have changed an awful lot, management, coaching, system, players. Maybe we’re being too adventurous too soon.
We have also played three of the top four at home, that is not insignificant, they are in the top four for a reason.
Singling Mavroponos out is a little unfair. Yes, he made mistakes which contributed to the overall dismal performance; but they all did , with only Kudus, Bissaka & Summerville showing anything positive. My actual opinion of Mavroponos is that he should not be in the team, & his performance yesterday amply illustrated that ! But, there were others who were even worse. We are all starting to panic, & panic is bad because it spreads & takes over. & things end up being even worse. But, things at West Ham are going to get worse before they start getting better; & performances like yesterday’s only prolong the wait for the upturn. Something, somewhere is very wrong at the club. What is it ? I don’t know, I am not an insider & I live 200 miles away. One thing is apparent; & it is that the manager is NOT the man we thought he was. True, the players let him down badly – & Chelsea are a better side than us – but what was TRULY worrying was that he had NO idea of what to do. Very much an eye opener for me !
A very difficult watch (on the telly at 6,000 miles) yesterday – but I think that our transfer window has been over-hyped – Alvarez is good when played as a DM but needs some energy around him – not Rodriguez – and as pointed out on C&H the answer to the low block is not to play your fullbacks permanently in the opposition half. Mavropanos is getting a lot of heat – but he seems to have been a Steidten pick – maybe Tim is not as good as the hype would have us believe – Guillerme should not have been our first buy
I am not really sure where we go from here but we need more energy in midfield for a start
All the talks about our defensive faults our attacking options ain’t much better .
Agree 💯, Alvarez on Jackson is a decision you really worry if Jlo has a clue what he is doing, the quickest defender we have is AWB and he plays further up field at wing back, Mavro is back up at best, we have hardly put a move together in the first lot of matches and are lucky to have 4 points, this is a manager who has a-lot of experience, very worrying …..
With respect, Martin, I reckon the first four words in “Lopetegui needs to go and reflect on the basics” could probably stand alone after a few more weeks of Loppy’s clueless team management. I can’t see the club putting up with this until January.
It has been said that David Sullivan was won over by Lopetegui in his job interview for the coaching position. What the hell did the Spaniard say to convince him? At the moment he is looking like a conman who rocked up with fake qualifications and a bullsh*t resume! I mean, the tea lady could have come up with better team selections and game plans than Loppy has over his first few weeks. How on earth did this guy get the Spain and Real Madrid jobs? I know that he didn’t keep either of them for very long!
Surely he has been with our club long enough to form some idea of how to make use of his newly acquired players and those who are already established Hammers. I hope that maybe he can look inside the box instead of, seemingly, outside it. I might just work!
One of the worst tactical performances I’ve ever seen. The manager has to take the blame for it. As Martin points out in his article AWB and Emerson playing as wingers far too far up the field and would have no chance to get back and help defend when Chelsea broke away. That must be under instruction. If you are gonna play 3 at the back then play 3 proper centre backs not a central midfielder who seemed to be just dropping back when needed. It was like having a 2 man defence and one that has a lot of pressure on him at the moment. The substitutions were mental. Last year I was moaning that we were playing so deep we were all virtually the whole team in our own penalty area. This season it’s the opposite and if you are going to push further forward in numbers then it would suit bringing on Ings and not Antonio imo