West Ham talk has predictably turned to the tediously binary choice of David Moyes or Julen Lopetegui.
A quick browse through social media following the fallout of the Hammers’ 3-0 loss to Nottingham Forest reveals a few smug “I told you so’s” mixed with “I hope you’re happy now’s” as pro-Moyes West Ham fans line up to take jabs at those who had grown frustrated with continuelly losing last season.
It’s the kind of internal rivalry that mocks the term ‘West Ham Family,’ but has sadly become all too prevalent whenever the going gets rough at our beloved club.
Having run polls on Claret & Hugh and Hammers Chat, I can confidently say that Julen Lopetegui was not the top choice for the majority of Irons fans to take over from Moyes.
Not that it matters to those point-scoring on social media; for them, anyone who wanted the old manager out is somehow responsible for Lopetegui’s poor performance. It’s a kind of paint-by-numbers blame game with no grounding in reality but plenty of fuel for online finger-pointing.
As always, the truth is somewhere in the middle, not binary at all. The Scotsman’s tenure with the Irons had run its course—his team last season was poor, and the squad that won the Conference League at the end of 2023 had aged and deteriorated. Moyes had built goodwill with fans, something Lopetegui can’t draw on particularly given that the former Spain boss can’t use fatigue from a European campaign as an excuse.
Lopetegui was brought in to revive the club, but he appears stale, confused, and far too eager to impress with frequent line-up changes and tactical tweaks. His defence appears as shaky as last season, with the £75m pairing of Jean-Clair Todibo and Max Kilman looking not much better than the £60m partnership of Nayef Aguerd and Kurt Zouma
The real crime here isn’t (as social media might suggest) that West Ham swapped an excellent manager for a poor one. It’s that we replaced a manager on the decline with someone no better.
Lopetegui’s shortcomings don’t make David Moyes a better manager; they just highlight the questionable choice of replacement.
