After that performance yesterday the media comments went into overdrive, with most of the blame being aimed squarely at West Ham’s head coach Julen Lopetegui. After all, he picks the team, decides who’s ready and works out the formations and styles he plans to use. So from that showing, he is rightly in the spotlight for the shambles of tactics and formation.
However I don’t think he takes sole responsibility for the chaos that reigned yesterday. By his own admission, and very publicly so, Hammers’ Technical Director Tim Steidten made his own position clear before the game to the TV cameras in a TNT Sports interview which makes the situation quite clear.
When asked specifically how closely Steidten worked with Lopetegui on a day to day basis and what their relationship was like, the German replied: “Really close, yeah, I’m at the training ground as well, we talk to each other every day.”
Quite clearly, this business of running the team at West Ham is a joint enterprise between the two of them, and Steidten cannot be absolved from the mess in which the football club is in danger of becoming mired.
Maybe – after such a lame performance and awful result, he regrets having such a high profile approach, many directors are inclined to let the Manager or Coach take centre stage on media duty.
Tim Steidten however was not one to shy away from the cameras so he needs to take his share of criticism for the position the club now finds itself in with a record three straight home defeats in the Premier League.
However, I hope that the two of them will be able to get their heads together and formulate a plan to get the club out of its sticky predicament. It is not yet a ‘crisis’ at West Ham and I still believe the duo have a lot to offer, having both been successful before arriving at London Stadium. Lopetegui should start by listening to, and learning from, a few home truths about ‘that’ awful set-up yesterday -which the players couldn’t work and Chelsea waltzed straight through.