West Ham United are undergoing a significant transformation as they prepare for the new Premier League season. The club’s ambitious recruitment drive, spearheaded by technical director Tim Steidten, has seen a complete overhaul of the squad.
With the arrivals of Max Kilman, Jean-Clair Todibo, and the news of the signing of Aaron Wan-Bissaka, the Hammers have significantly bolstered their defensive options. The addition of attacking talents like Niclas Fullkrug and Crysencio Summerville has also added firepower to the team.
Head Coach Julen Lopetegui has the tools signed sealed and delivered now from his Director of Football. The job to create a ‘team’ out of an influx of eight new players all arriving ‘cold’ with the first Premier League game on Saturday is a huge one.
Let alone overcoming the challenges on the pitch, the language barrier alone with Guilherme (Portuguese), Fullkrug (German) Rodriguez (Spanish) Todibo (French) will make for some interesting shouts from the touchline and amongst team-mates who haven’t actually shared a dressing room yet.
In addition the sheer logistics of settling players into temporary accommodation at short notice, getting them registered, collected and delivered to training, makes the club go into overdrive. All with the Aston Villa game looming large on Saturday!
However, this influx of new players has created a competitive environment, with several established players facing uncertain futures. The likes of Soucek, Coufal, Mavropanos, Ward-Prowse and Ings could all find that training takes on an even more competitive edge to impress the manager.
Lopetegui’s task is not an easy one and may well take several months to come to fruition: That is what he’s paid the big bucks for – €4 million a year – so whilst Tim Steidten’s time in the spotlight is nearing completition, Lopetegui’s is only just beginning.
As long as the fans don’t get on his case if we start off with a few adverse results, he needs time to mould his team . COYI
Our fans over reacting ?,four of our first five home games are Villa,City,Chelsea and Man Utd,if we don’t have a great start the usual divs will be after J-Los head as usual
Yeah that does worry me. Bring back Moyes, JLo wrong appointment etc I would expect from some of the less educated. Plus the Moyes brigade pundits dragging out “careful what you wish for”
I’ve mentioned before how it took a while for Bournemouth to adjust to Iraola and his tactics
Christmas time will be able to judge realistically
Happy if it’s earlier, but we need patience
Certainly got to give the man time to do his job without looking over his shoulder. For the first time for years it looks as though teams will find it hard to target a weak link – last year we saw teams putting two defenders on our only attacker to nullify our attack, with Bowen having to help Coufal out as teams targeted our right flank and of course there was always straight through the middle against a defensively weak midfield duo and a CB whose injuries had made immobile. COYI
We’ve way passed the point where there may be getting them all to gel problems, but essentially they’re quality players that have come in and they’re in in a timely fashion before the first game.
Pre season form can be pretty much ignored. Other than Celta Vigo we never fielded a team that even vaguely resembled the one that will face Villa.
There may be some stuttering but that’s common with many teams at the start of the season, essentially though we can field a quality first eleven that should be able to overcome that.
Can’t wait to get this season started. New coach, new team I’m excited
I’ll take 7pts from those first 4 battles ⚒️☘️
Let’s get behind the team and the new manager, there are definitely exciting times ahead but it will take time for it all to fit together properly.
Our fans will be patient if they see improvement from day 1 and buy into the plan.
I can’t wait personally ⚒️⚒️⚒️