West Ham United vice-chairman Karren Brady has opened up on the decision to sack Julen Lopetegui.
It was the right decision to move him on, but let’s all be honest here, Julen Lopetegui lasted more than two months longer in the West Ham job than he should have done.
And now Karren Brady has lifted the lid on exactly why he was moved on.
Graham Potter was named as Lopetegui’s replacement on Thursday, and Tomas Soucek took a back-handed dig at the Spaniard by raving about Potter’s methods just before our clash with Aston Villa.
After Lopetegui was sacked, his camp questioned the commitment of the West Ham players.
I think that is actually fair – many of the players at the London Stadium undoubtedly downed tools in order to get the 58-year-old the sack.
That’s a sad indictment on them as much as it Lopetegui.
Nevertheless, sacking him was still the correct decision – he was totally hopeless and proved to be completely inept tactically.
Now we know exactly why the Hammers owners decided to pull the plug on Lopetegui’s time at the club.
Karren Brady: Real reason why West Ham sacked Julen Lopetegui
Lopetegui seriously underwhelmed during his time in East London.
When he took over the Hammers on July 1st, we were inundated with messages from his pal Guillem Balague, telling us how we had snared a world-class coach.
That couldn’t be further from the truth though could it, we all realise that now.
Karren Brady has broken her silence on the situation and highlighted exactly why the club decided to move him on.
Brady explained, when writing her regular column for The Sun:
“At West Ham, we have always taken as much care and pride in recruiting the ‘man’ as we have in recruiting the ‘manager’.“
“And so we were disappointed that things didn’t work out with Julen Lopetegui.“
“A good man, a family man, an extremely hard-working man, who was a pleasure to deal with and wanted to be successful here as much as we wanted him to be.“
“We wish Julen and his staff, who worked so well with our team on and off the pitch, all the very best in their future endeavours.“
“Ultimately though, we have an ambitious project at this football club, and we have a responsibility to our loyal and passionate supporters to do all we can to keep that on track.“
There you have it. He was sacked because he didn’t meet his remits and wasn’t able to match our ambitions as a club.
According to Karren Brady, Julen Lopetegeui’s sacking had nothing to do with his strained relationships with certain players.
Julen Lopetegui problems ran deeper than poor form
I’m not so sure about what Brady said.
I mean, she’s right because he definitely wasn’t up to the task, so was unable to match the ambitions of the board and the fans.
However, I’m convinced there was more to it.
The likes of Jean-Clair Todibo, Mohammed Kudus and Alphonse Areola clearly all big problems with Lopetegui, and that has since been confirmed by The Athletic.
The 58-year-old was quite obviously a terrible man-manager.
He failed to develop any kind of connection with the supporters or his players during his short tenure at the London Stadium.
And that became his undoing in the end. Karren Brady suggested that the West Ham board sacked Julen Lopetegui because he was failing to align with the club’s ambitious project.
And whilst there is undoubtedly some truth to that, there simply must have been more to the decision to sack him.
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