West Ham United were taken to the cleaners by Chelsea at the London Stadium on Saturday afternoon, and Julen Lopetegui is to blame for a lot of things that went on.
Julen Lopetegui made huge changes at the London Stadium in the summer, bringing nine new players to West Ham.
However, the 2-0 defeat to Chelsea proved that the West Ham head coach has a lot of work to do if he is to get all of those players to gel together.
The sullen faces of Hammers chiefs David Sullivan and Karren Brady at the full-time whistle told a story, and things really aren’t looking good for Lopetegui right now.
Despite the fact that Guillem Balague has already leapt to the defence of Lopetegui, the Spaniard is undoubtedly under pressure now.
In our next five games, we face clashes with Liverpool, Brentford, Tottenham and Manchester United.
Sandwiched between all of those fixtures is a home game against Ipswich, and worryingly, that already looks like a potential six-pointer.
Lopetegui needs to get things right on the training ground as a matter of urgency. However, his in-game decisions and man-management needs to improve as well.
Terrible man-management from West Ham chief Julen Lopetegui
The game against the Blues was over inside the first 25 minutes or so.
We were so weak defensively, and Chelsea carved through us like a hot knife through butter.
Lopetegui made his first questionable decision of the game when he hooked Guido Rodriguez with eight minutes still to play until half-time.
However, there was a far worse call that he made yesterday in my opinion, when it comes to man-management at least.
Danny Ings sat on the bench looking forlorn after Lopetegui had made all of his five substitutions.
After last week’s injury-time equaliser against Fulham, the fact that he was an unused sub yesterday was hard to believe.
What made Lopetegui’s decision not to bring Ings on even stranger was the fact that he told reporters last week how the 32-year-old is a shining example to all of his teammates.
Not bringing Ings into the fray yesterday was an utterly bizarre move from the Hammers gaffer – one that he should be scrutinised for.
Patience is needed with Lopetegui but progress a must
We all need to give Lopetegui time to prove that he’s the man needed to take this great club forward.
However, it would be great if there were signs, no matter how little, along the way to give us all faith that we are indeed heading in the right direction.
Right now, it just seems to me like Lopetegui is making far too many simple mistakes with his team selection and substitutions.
He would help himself out massively by getting very simple, easy decisions correct.
Ings scored a late equaliser against Fulham last weekend, so the Spaniard should have given him 20 or 30 minutes against Chelsea to prove himself.
It was such an obvious call for West Ham boss Julen Lopetegui to make, but he blew it. Ings must be seriously demotivated right now.
That was rank bad man-management if you ask me, and the 58-year-old needs to take a long, hard look at himself in the mirror.
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