West Ham vs Everton: Julen Lopetegui under increasing pressure after turbulent start | OneFootball

Anything less than three points against Toffees would be huge disappointment

As an under-pressure Julen Lopetegui addressed the media on Thursday, it was notable that he was at his happiest when discussing plans to spend much of the international break visiting his 94-year-old father. It offered some respite, at long last, from the deluge of questions about his West Ham future.

The 58-year-old has endured a turbulent first three months of his maiden campaign as Hammers head coach, the club 14th in the table and with only Ipswich and Wolves having conceded more goals. It has been such a false start under Lopetegui. A season that promised much is delivering so much less.

An exciting summer with nine prestige signings has given way to a feeling of malaise at the London Stadium, where Lopetegui has urged fans to get behind the team in Saturday’s crunch match.

Many supporters have been left feeling that in Lopetegui the club have simply hired a worse version of David Moyes. The Scot revealed on Wednesday what had long been suspected: that the contract extension offered to him after last December’s 2-0 win over Arsenal was later retracted, explaining his mutually-agreed exit this summer.

Moyes led West Ham into Europe in each of the last three seasons, yet his defensively pragmatic style of play was not always easy on the eye. Well, neither has it been under Lopetegui — and the results have been worse.

The Hammers have tallied a meagre 11 points from 10 Premier League games, and it has been difficult to decipher what Lopetegui is trying to do. He, too, is a pragmatist. That tends to mean flowing football gives way to defensive astuteness, but this season West Ham have so often had neither.

Lopetegui’s tactical decisions have often unravelled. Switching to a back three against Forest last weekend produced a hefty 3-0 defeat, and the pick of the summer signings, Crysencio Summerville, has shone in every substitute cameo yet started just twice in the league.

Their arrivals fall at the door of West Ham technical director Tim Steidten, but the failure of Lopetegui to get a tune out of signings such as Max Kilman, Jean-Clair Todibo or Guido Rodriguez has not helped either — and Niclas Fullkrug’s prolonged Achilles tendon injury has restricted him to just 63 league minutes.

Lucas Paqueta, with his spot-fixing hearing looming, has been a shadow of his former self. With Kudus and Alvarez out, he is likely to start against Everton. How West Ham could do with him hitting his best form.

Lucas Paqueta is out of form for West Ham

REUTERS

Blame cannot be put on Jarrod Bowen, Michail Antonio or Tomas Soucek, nor, when he has played, Lukasz Fabianski. That quartet were some of Moyes’s most reliable servants and are doing their best in the circumstances. Lopetegui recognised their importance, saying: “Players with big experience can help. Sometimes leadership appears in this kind of moment.”

Plenty of West Ham fans will be fighting off the urge to engage in a little ‘what-iffery’ as they watch Ruben Amorim prepare to take the reins at Manchester United.

Not only did the Hammers’ 2-1 win over United a fortnight ago prove the final nail in the coffin for Erik ten Hag, but Amorim was Steidten’s favoured choice as Moyes’s replacement in April. The failure of Amorim and Hammers chairman David Sullivan to strike a deal set in motion the chain of events that eventually brought Lopetegui to East London.

Lopetegui insists he has a “very good” relationship with Sullivan. While the Hammers manager knows he needs a positive result to ease the pressure, just as crucial is convincing fans and his own players that he is instilling a clear identity on the pitch.

“Step by step we are going to achieve this,” he said confidently. Increasingly it feels like now or never.