Julen Lopetegui arrived in a blaze of positive publicity, lauded as the coach to take West Ham United to the next level. But he departs under a cloud as the shortest-lived managerial appointment in the club’s 124-year history, sacked after just 22 games.
And it could have been over even quicker than that. At least one member of West Ham’s hierarchy would have fired him in early November if they had it their way.
Concerns over former Spain and Real Madrid head coach Lopetegui’s future in the role were heightened after the 3-0 defeat away to Nottingham Forest on November 2. The main factors were the lack of tactical identity in the team and the Spaniard not being the right fit for West Ham. He was given more time in the hope of conjuring a marked improvement, but internally it was felt to be a short-term reprieve.
Further heavy defeats and fractious relationships with players — and with the club’s technical director Tim Steidten — contributed to Lopetegui’s underwhelming eight-month spell in east London.
By the turn of the year, Steidten had actively begun to sound out potential replacements, including Edin Terzic, who steered Borussia Dortmund to last season’s Champions League final; Sergio Conceicao, since appointed as Milan manager; Paolo Fonseca, the man Conceicao replaced at San Siro; and the eventual appointee, former Swansea, Brighton and Chelsea manager Graham Potter.
Lopetegui oversaw training on Wednesday morning before being informed of his sacking. He was dismissed along with his backroom staff of Pablo Sanz, Oscar Caro, Juan Vicente Peinado, Borja De Alba and Edu Rubio. Potter takes over on a two-and-a-half-year contract. He had been out of work since a seven-month spell at Chelsea ended with him being fired in April 2023.
Lopetegui lost nine of his 20 games as head coach. The 4-1 defeat to Manchester City last Saturday was considered the final straw. The mood in the away end at the Etihad Stadium was bleak, with his own team’s supporters singing “You’re getting sacked in the morning” at him.
West Ham are seven points above the relegation zone, and Lopetegui being jettisoned just over halfway through his first season in charge was long in the making. The Athletic has talked to people at the club, people close to the hierarchy and to the players and people close to the outgoing manager. All of those who spoke to us for this article did so under the condition of anonymity, to protect relationships.
The Athletic can reveal for the first time what went wrong for Lopetegui at West Ham, including how:
- A lack of days off affected morale at the club
- Ruben Amorim and Fabian Hurzeler were also on the initial shortlist for the job
- Players arranged a night out after a heavy defeat to local rivals Tottenham to improve morale
- Jean-Clair Todibo clashed with Lopetegui at half-time of one game — and the pair had to be separated
- Players found instructions in training and matches confusing — and goalkeepers trained with the outfielders
Lopetegui, who turned down interest from clubs in the Saudi Pro League and elsewhere in Europe, was named as David Moyes’ successor in May, shortly after the end of last season. He signed a two-year contract, with the option of a further season, having been out of work since leaving fellow Premier League side Wolves in summer 2023.
Steidten and Rubio, as first-team coach, accompanied Lopetegui at his official unveiling in July. Other backroom staff members were in the audience that day, along with his representatives and West Ham director Jack Sullivan, son of the club’s majority shareholder David Sullivan.
Lopetegui spoke passionately about his plans for the future and not wanting to put a limit on what West Ham could achieve. It was also Steidten’s first time addressing the media since his arrival from German side Bayer Leverkusen in July 2023.
Lopetegui during his first competitive game as West Ham coach (Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images)
“We are a club with big potential,” said Lopetegui. “We have a very good platform — talking about the squad, the team and the players — to be able to do one step and to make a big noise. That is the aim that we want to make here.”
These words resonated with the club’s owners, but might have prompted a sense of deja vu among the fans, who have become sceptical after previous promises of what proved false dawns under big-name coaches.
Lopetegui’s appointment was, like Manuel Pellegrini’s six years earlier, viewed internally as a glamorous, ambitious upgrade on the work done by Moyes. Pellegrini’s tenure was short-lived, but the Chilean still lasted 12 months longer than Lopetegui, whose brief and unhappy tenure will lead to questions about the West Ham board’s football vision and strategy.
Steidten said Lopetegui was a standout candidate for the role. He was also interested in Amorim, since made Manchester United head coach, who held talks with West Ham’s representatives in April while manager of Lisbon’s Sporting CP. Amorim later admitted it was a mistake to meet West Ham and that the timing of his trip to London was inappropriate but Steidten had been determined to secure his signature.
A source close to the technical director said he also had 31-year-old countryman Hurzeler, now of Brighton & Hove Albion after taking St Pauli to top-flight promotion in Germany last season, on the shortlist. But majority shareholder Sullivan wanted an experienced head coach with Premier League experience.
Since taking co-ownership of the club in January 2010, Sullivan has never appointed a manager who had been in employment elsewhere. Amorim and Hurzeler both had jobs.
So it was Lopetegui who got the nod, and he officially started work in early July. In his first week, he travelled with the team to Austria for a week-long training camp, which featured a friendly against Hungarian side Ferencvaros. Three of the nine summer signings — Luis Guilherme, Wes Foderingham and Maximilian Kilman — had already joined by then, with Todibo, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Carlos Soler, Guido Rodriguez, Crysencio Summerville and Niclas Fullkrug arriving before the end of the window.
West Ham’s performances during pre-season were far from convincing. Their sole win came against neighbours Dagenham & Redbridge, who play in the fifth tier of English football, with defeats to Crystal Palace and Wolves on tour in the United States, and draws to Ferencvaros and Spain’s Celta Vigo.
Issues over training also came to the fore early in Lopetegui’s reign. Sources close to the dressing room said pre-season was one of the hardest many players had experienced in their careers, with the lack of downtime proving difficult.
One of Lopetegui’s first acts as head coach was to reduce the number of days off given to the team. This was intended to improve work ethic but hurt morale, sources close to the dressing room said. After complaints about long hours at the training ground, Lopetegui later increased the players’ time off but it was too little, too late.
After the 4-1 away loss against Tottenham Hotspur on October 19, Lopetegui admitted he needed to improve his communication with the players.
Dressing-room sources said the squad found it hard to understand what he was trying to achieve, with the coaches’ instructions causing confusion. The team often played a possession-based style in training, with the goalkeepers sometimes mixing in with their outfield colleagues. But this differed from what Lopetegui would then implement on matchday.
Constant changes to his starting XI prevented West Ham from finding consistency. There were occasions when the players would not know the line-up until the day of a game. And Lopetegui often tweaked the team again at half-time — West Ham are first in the Premier League for substitutions at the interval (19).
Another concern was the extent to which Lopetegui clashed with key players.
In September, he had a frank exchange of words with Mohammed Kudus at half-time in the 1-1 draw away to Brentford. Lopetegui said Kudus’ substitution at half-time that day was for tactical reasons. He was not impressed with the Ghana international forward’s performance and Kudus felt the criticism was unfair. The Athletic reported that, according to dressing-room sources, members of West Ham’s hierarchy reached out to Kudus’ camp to reassure them there were no lingering issues between player and head coach.
Lopetegui speaking to Kudus (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
Kudus received a three-match ban, later increased to five games, for his red card in the next away match, against Tottenham. That evening, most of the squad arranged to have a night out in central London’s Soho to try to improve morale, dressing-room sources said.
West Ham won their next fixture, at home against Manchester United, but days later Lopetegui clashed with goalkeeper Alphonse Areola. The France international was frustrated at losing his place — he was dropped against United having started every previous league match, then not in the matchday squad for the ensuing games against Nottingham Forest and Everton. Lopetegui explained his absence was due to a minor knock, but their relationship was fractious, according to people close to the players. Areola is a popular member of the squad and is a very calm person off the field.
Lopetegui’s inability to create a harmonious dressing room was his undoing.
Another incident was a heated disagreement with defender Todibo at half-time of the 5-2 home defeat against Arsenal at the end of November. The pair had to be separated. Todibo was understandably angry at conceding five goals in a half. He also felt he had been harshly criticised by Lopetegui over his performance.
The 25-year-old has also been frustrated by a series of injuries. He picked up a small calf issue in that match against Tottenham and was still carrying the knock when he appeared as a half-time substitute against Manchester United the following weekend. The France international then sustained a groin injury in the win against Newcastle United at the end of November, which was the reason for his absence against Leicester City a week later, and suffered another setback during Saturday’s loss to Manchester City.
It wasn’t just players who Lopetegui clashed with. He and Steidten disagreed over the signing of midfielder Rodriguez, according to sources close to the West Ham hierarchy.
Aleix Garcia, who joined Leverkusen from Spain’s Girona, and former Chelsea star N’Golo Kante, now of Saudi club Al Ittihad, were the initial intended midfield targets. Lopetegui lobbied hard for Rodriguez’s arrival as a free agent having left Real Betis of La Liga, but Steidten wanted to veto the deal. Despite pushing for the 30-year-old, a member of the Argentina squad who won the 2022 World Cup, people close to Lopetegui said he did not view him as good enough to start regularly.
In mid-December, Steidten began staying away from the training ground. West Ham said he was instead focusing on the approaching winter transfer window.
The technical director has also come under scrutiny for overseeing a summer expenditure of over £120million. Guilherme, a £25m signing from Brazilian side Palmeiras, is yet to start a league game for the club, though he is still just 18 years old. The 31-year-old Fullkrug, who cost £27m from Dortmund, has been injury-prone during his career and that pattern has continued with West Ham. Only Summerville, Wan-Bissaka, Todibo and Kilman have emerged as solid additions.
It was Daniel Kretinsky, West Ham’s second-largest shareholder, who pushed for Steidten’s appointment in July 2023, according to sources close to the club’s hierarchy. In that first transfer window, the German convinced Kudus, Edson Alvarez and Konstantinos Mavropanos to move to the London Stadium. But Steidten’s track record for summer 2024 has not been viewed positively.
A dejected Bowen during the loss to Leicester (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
Lopetegui wanted to be a success at West Ham but is now looking for his fourth job in 27 months.
His time at the London Stadium has done little to restore his reputation after his stints at Real Madrid, where he only lasted 14 games in 2018, and Wolves, who he left by mutual consent less than a week before the 2023-24 season kicked off. He may have an impressive CV, which includes leading Sevilla to a Europa League final win in 2020 and Spain to European titles at under-19 and under-21 levels, but West Ham regressed under him, losing seven of his first 14 league games.
A source close to Lopetegui said he found it difficult working under West Ham’s ownership. He believes a spate of injuries hit him hard in attacking areas, with the Achilles problem that kept Fullkrug out for over two months from early September forcing him to field a 34-year-old Michail Antonio up front. Lopetegui felt the Jamaica international had limitations in terms of the style of football he wanted the team to play.
Lopetegui had confidence in his own ability but believes many different circumstances prevented him from doing well at West Ham, and people close to the 58-year-old highlighted the commitment of the players during his time in charge.
Wednesday’s news means he will not get a chance to bid a proper farewell to supporters at the London Stadium. But that may be the best outcome, as getting booed off at home had become a regular theme of the Lopetegui era.
(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
