Lopetegui sack follows laughable West Ham stance after youth U-turn ahead of ‘make-or-break games’

West Ham have given Julen Lopetegui his latest pointless two-game job-saving ultimatum. It is not working, probably never will and should be ended now.

When Julen Lopetegui deflected criticism by pointing out that “the Premier League has 38 matches and we’ll talk in May,” it summed up the deep-rooted incompatibility West Ham hold with their manager.

The Premier League season might well comprise of 38 games for every team, but a typical West Ham campaign is split into three-game chunks of flip-flopping, job-saving and decision-dodging.

“We beat Arsenal on December 28, we beat them at the Emirates, and that day they offered me a new contract,” David Moyes said earlier this month. “Then we lost three games in a row. He withdrew the contract, David Sullivan, just on the back of the results.”

That victory over Arsenal was their third in a row, with Wolves and Manchester United also vanquished in December. Then came a run of three successive draws before that critical three-game losing streak in February.

No serious institution would be prone to such sudden and volatile changes of tack based only on the most recent evidence; West Ham seem to pride themselves on it.

That bold Lopetegui stance came in late September, with the wounds from a 5-1 thrashing by Liverpool in the Carabao still fresh and the Hammers 14th with one win in their opening five league games.

Media reports suggested the Spaniard ‘will be closely monitored in their next three games’ and ‘he could be increasingly under the microscope if results and performances don’t improve for the better’.

They won, drew and lost those decisive matches, being held by Brentford before smashing Ipswich and collapsing against Spurs.

The following month, it was said that ‘the next three games leading up to the international break will be crucial for his future’ as West Ham sat 16th with two wins in their opening eight league games.

They won, drew and lost those pivotal matches, beating Manchester United hilariously unconvincingly before being tossed aside by Nottingham Forest and barely salvaging a point against Everton.

When West Ham’s results seemingly depend on the flip of a three-sided coin, and West Ham’s decision on their manager hinges on those results, it matters not how many games they give Lopetegui because he will always do just enough to cling on.

Maybe it is a media issue, or more pertinently how West Ham harness that particular relationship. The Guardian’s well-connected Jacob Steinberg has now written remarkably similar articles on Lopetegui’s future both before and after the final sack-inducing international break of the year.

The first, on November 6, stated that the West Ham hierarchy would ‘review’ Lopetegui’s situation if they lost to Everton. One thoroughly underwhelming home draw later and on November 20 ‘there is a serious prospect of him being fired this month’.

The Everton game ‘was not viewed as make or break’ a fortnight ago but Lopetegui ‘is facing two make-or-break games’ against Newcastle and Arsenal’ now. And both articles cite the same unimaginative four-man shortlist of replacements, the wonderfully vague claim that ‘long- and short-term appointments are being considered’, the tendency of co-owner Sullivan not to sack mid-season, the increasing scrutiny on technical director Tim Steidten and concerns over tactics and discipline.

It makes a mockery of the apparent need to render judgements based solely on the next one, two or three games. Why place such singular emphasis on a Newcastle fixture they have not won since August 2021? What is achieved by putting Lopetegui’s future down to the game against Arsenal five days later when their last three Premier League results against the Gunners have, of course, been a win, a draw and a defeat? Will those tactical and disciplinary concerns really be eased in 180 minutes? If they scrape a draw in one of those games is there any point in stowing away that shortlist until the next panic?

Even a glance at the schedule until and just past Christmas suggests more of the same. Games against Leicester and Wolves look precariously winnable. Then come tough tests against Bournemouth and Brighton, before a trip to Southampton. After that, consecutive matches against Liverpool and Manchester City will mark the anniversary of Moyes’ impulsive job offer. If Lopetegui isn’t given at least two sequences of Games To Save His Job in that time it would be a surprise.

But West Ham have locked themselves in this infernal cycle. It is a problem entirely of their own making, one they double down on each time Lopetegui is given these flimsy ultimatums which do nothing to prompt the establishment of an actual playing identity or semblance of direction.

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The West Ham Way has long been difficult to properly define but Lopetegui’s interpretation is the worst yet. Both their attacking output and defensive record are among the worst in the entire division and well over £100m was spent on refreshing an established squad.

David Moyes presided over the Premier League’s second-oldest team in 2023/24. Their average age of 28.2 has plummeted to 28.1 under Lopetegui, whose side is the oldest after Fulham’s successful attempt to integrate slightly more youth in 2024/25.

That was thought to be one of the specific remits the Spaniard was given upon his appointment. West Ham’s FA Youth Cup win in 2023 has not preceded the sort of revolution some might have hoped would transform the first team but Lopetegui was supposed to herald that brave new movement.

“We are trying to know more about the young players that we have, for sure,” he said in July. “Every day we want good help from the young players and this ambition to stay in the first team is always good for us. They’re all working very well and hopefully one of them is going to help us during the season.”

The wait goes on. West Ham are one of four Premier League clubs yet to use an Academy-trained player this season and Luis Guilherme’s 11 substitute minutes are the only ones afforded to any player under the age of 23 in all competitions.

It looks worse the deeper you dig. The highly-rated 20-year-old centre-half Kaelan Casey has only been named on the bench twice and teenaged left-back Oliver Scarles was an unused substitute in the Everton draw. No other youth players have made a single Lopetegui matchday squad.

Those are the sort of endemic, fundamental issues which make West Ham’s perennial final warnings look pointless, laughable and weak. Lopetegui and the supporters can only be threatened with the naughty step so many times; it is time for any grown-ups in the room to actually follow through with the threat.

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