The state of the dressing room atmosphere at London Stadium leaves much to be desired: Lopetegui seems to have a long list of players whom he’s fallen out with or who want to leave in January- that much is clear from the cold, almost detached attitude he displayed toward some last night in the home fixture against Wolves.
When Lucas Paquetá was summoned from the bench, Lopetegui ignored him as he waited to come on: There were no final words of wisdom or good luck wishes, leading Jeff Stelling to wonder out loud on talksport.com if Paquetá was now added to the ranks of want-away players.
Ditto Mohammed Kudus upon substitution in the closing minutes, muttering, tearing off his wrist bandage and aiming an indecipherable rant towards Lopetegui as he left the pitch.
Relations have been ‘fractious’ between Kudus and Lopetegui since the Brentford bust up. The player was rumoured to have asked his agent to get him out of London Stadium last month, with a transfer to Liverpool being said to be Kudus’ first choice.
Now via teamtalk and tbrfootball.com, Another report links Kudus with a January move, this time to Arsenal. The Gunners are one of the few Premier League clubs able to pay the £80 plus million it’ll need to take Kudus away from West Ham and are reported to be interested as: “Rather than sign an out-and-out-striker as many have predicted, a move for the more versatile Mohammed Kudus is being sought. … Kudus can operate anywhere across the front line and has been in Arsenal’s sights ever since arriving in England.”
West Ham of course have an urgent mini-rebuild required in January to supplement their front line and midfield. If Lopetegui stays in post, the tension between player and coach may well mean reports like this have substance and Kudus is sold, to fund that rebuild, improve West Hams borderline PSR situation and end the toxic player /coach situation.
Whilst it would be good business it would be very disappointing to see talent like that leave the club before the summer, when we have had to come to terms with the reality that he’d probably be leaving anyway.
No chance whatsoever of kudus going there in January. They need a striker not another winger . Yet more north London propaganda.
£80m in January seems a bit cheap, especially as his summer buy out clause is reported to be £85m. We can name our price in the winter window
Now we are losing all our best players because of this clown…excellent…back to a selling club ..no bollox on this club AT ALL…rebuild but get rid of 2 of our best players because the management is z petulant child..yeah sounds great..then the new players come in a losepotago falls out with them as well ..nothing will chsnge in him or for this club while he is in charge…..his man management 0% …AWFUL
Stop the fking doom and gloom.plse ..its been enough having to watch this season let alone story’s like this
…ffs
JLo has absolutely no people skills and it’s clear to see I don’t blame the players that don’t want to stay while he’s still in charge the players clearly have no respect for him but he doesn’t show the players any respect it works both ways as for a manager of a football club he doesn’t seem to have any idea what he’s doing This situation should have been solved before the international break but as ever Sullivan can’t put his ego to one side and do what is best for the club and the fans we all make mistakes but most put their hands up when they have got it wrong
There was nothing in the performance last night to suggest that we’ll take anything off either Bournemouth or Brighton. I’m not expecting Lopetegui to be about after those games solves and friction with players problems at a stroke.
Don’t be silly John you no by beating Wolves it resets Sullivans sackometer to 3 games he loses two then gets lucky it is Southampton in the third wins that and the sackometer gets reset again….he will still be here come the Summer.