It was Richard Keys (no stranger to crass comment himself) who Labelled West Ham United’s Technical Director Tim Steidten a ‘sneaky weasel’ after his ‘background recruiting’ before Scot David Moyes had left the building. However much it would seem that Steidten’s job was to be proactive finding a replacement after Moyes declined a new ‘head coach’ contract, the ‘sneaky weasel’ nickname certainly created some headlines.
I’m wondering whether Steidten is up to his ‘tricks’ again. It seems as though the leaks surrounding a Lopetegui successor – through Florian Plettenberg – reported by Gonzo earlier – may well be orchestrated by Steidten in the background.
For Plettenberg to name a possible ‘West Ham head coach successor’ – former assistant to Slaven Bilic and former BVB coach Edin Terzic – seems a little too contrived to have come to Plettenberg out of thin air.
Steidten’s recent appearance ‘glad handing’ and ‘high fiving’ with the team in the tunnel before the Spurs debacle suggest, again, Tim is muddying the waters and straying into head coach territory: Who is actually running the team?
Steidten was was actually interviewed in front of the TV cameras before West Ham’s Chelsea thrashing earlier in September. Funny, isn’t it, that he is nowhere to be seen after the game when the coach has to face the music on his own without the anorak’ed one to stand firm alongside him.
Steidten needs to consider stepping up with his ‘pro West Ham’ visibility to support the current coach, captain and team at a really difficult stage in their season. Forget paddling his own ‘weasly canoe’ to curry favour with the media and trail new possible successor names – all of which just destabilises Lopetegui further.
The more I think about it – perhaps that is the real purpose, knowing Lopetegui has a propensity to cut and run if things don’t go his way – as he did at Wolves?
