After a ‘video blackout’ in the latter stages of Lopetegui’s reign at Rush Green, the West Ham media machine is back with its video clips of training.
Hopefully this is now not just a one-off to show head coach Graham Potter’s involvement: Under Lopetegui, Pablo Sanz the assistant coach was the voice most heard yelling in previous videos usually with J’Lo nowhere to be seen.
There was one striking, immediate difference evident from watching this video, even without over analysing, player watching or frantically searching for tactical gems!
The level of noise during training has rocketed.
The players are enjoying themselves: Mohammed Kudus is bantering again. Smiles are back on faces and the ‘Potter bounce’ is clearly noticeable. You’d have to be a regular watcher of these ‘you tube’ clips to remember how tense, terse and silent the last recordings were, back in November, with just a handful of players actually shown and everyone looking as if their very future in the first team depended on not screwing up. Take a look yourself, here, from about 5 minutes onward it is clear that a new broom has swept clean at the training ground.
Indeed I think it was Nigel Reo-Coker who remarked even back in the summer camp in Florida that the team was quiet, there were no leaders or characters: It seems even without Skipper Bowen or Michail Antonio there’s no such problem now.
Hopefully we’ll see this carry forward onto the pitch tonight. Too early for big tactical switches after one session, but the confidence levels look on the increase as subtle team-building has evidently already enhanced the squad mentality.
