The name Guillem Balague might not be known to all of you West Ham fans who frequent Claret and Hugh so I’ll elaborate a little. The Spaniard is -(thanks Wiki) ” a Spanish football journalist, author, and pundit. He was a regular pundit on Sky Sports’ show Revista de la Liga and has also written for some of Britain’s newspapers as well as several Spanish newspapers”.
He’s been a well known supporter of countryman Julen Lopetegui and, whilst I admire his loyalty, I’m not sure he’s correct when he dives to J’Lo’s defence – again – taking to his own twitterX account accordingly after the loss against Leicester.
“The team played very well against Newcastle and also Leicester (31 shots on goal, record this season!), but they lack the confidence you acquire when you win two consecutive games. They also need to adjust the high line employed yesterday, and not to concede so early. That is more work in training, not an impossible task.
“Mind is everything in football and you can tell the players lack calmness right now in key moments during matches.”
“It does feel though that the team believes in the idea and in the leadership, that is what it seemed yesterday. It is starting to be a recognisable team that wants to dominate, create chances, entertain”
Lopetegui’s supporter Guillem Balague
I’m not sure he and West Ham fans have been watching the same games.
I’d ask myself – why do they need to ‘adjust the high line’ – because it was a naive set up against a renown Premier League predator who specialises in running off the full backs. 100% down to the way the coach set them up.
The players lack calmness – why? Because they’ve been set up wrong so often I don’t believe they buy into the head coach’s approach any more.
Compare with Tim Sherwood’s blunt summary on Sky Sports: “They are playing as if they have just been thrown on the pitch and wherever they land is where they play. There is absolutely no structure to their play. The manager has got it all wrong.”
Having watched the game myself – I know whose opinion I’d go with.
I’ll bet you a Christmas pudding he’s gone by the weekend.
Watching the game again, there were parts of the game during the first half -after being down 1×0- where West Ham looked promising. Lots of possession and repeated attacking, but lacking the precision or technical ability to score. And at times, yes, they would seem to lack confidence. As for playing a high line, that never has quite seemed to work for this West Ham. Maybe we lack fast enough defenders (and 40 million defenders, really?).
Even a new coach will find it to be quite a challenge to change them into a successful team, which wins games while playing entertaining football.
Pep Guardiola couldn’t turn this group of players from a pig’s ear into a silk purse.
Too old, too slow, too indifferent. The midfield is catatonic, except for Alvarez who seems to have developed two club feet (impossible, and yet).
What is bred in the bone will out in the flesh.
Pig’s ear.
Look, I agree that J-Lo needs to go, but summoning the opinion of Tim Sherwood as your counterpoint isn’t really a great argument. He was also a total disaster as a PL manager. It’s the best league in the world. I’m sure Lopetegui will do well in a lesser league, but to succeed in the PL is no easy thing, and most managers ultimately fail at it.
Sherwoods right . The way some of our fanbase embrace mediocrity is embarrassing.
Who is he anyway. Apart from your brief description of his journalistic ventures, does he have any player or coaching experience at the higher levels? It sounds like his only association is that he is a buddy of Lopetegui and if he thinks Lopetegui is a top coach, I would not trust anything he says as far as I can spit.
Blimey, this guy must live in cloud cuckoo land !!!
Regarding the next coach, most of the named suspects are from the European leagues where football is played in a different way from the Premiership.
Most of them have dodgy cv’s which mean little to us in England.
One European name that does spring to mind is Thomas Frank who is doing a fine job at Brentford. He’s kept them up and is now making progress up the league when we are languishing way down to where we should be with the players available to us.
I expect, however, that we’ll finish up with another “name” from Europe who most of us have never heard of.
Why even play a ******* high line against weak opposition whose only threat is through balls to runners.
Why choose less than your strongest starting eleven.
Why throw on panic substitutions rather than reasoned ones.
Leicester didn’t beat us, we set ourselves up to lose.
A high line in that game is a perfect example of the calamity stuff that forms the reasons why he has to go.
We’ve seen the high line before and got caught out, so obviously lesson not learnt!
Quite right. They are sooo slow they should line up on the 18 yard box so they aren’t caught out. Other than when they have a geri-nap…
he must have watched a different batch of matches to me or needs glasses
Yeah I know the guy.Reports mostly on the European leagues especially the Spanish.Was saying in the summer how well Lopetegui would do well for us.He should stick to what he’s best at eg European football.