When it’s over, it’s over. Nothing more need to be said, Julen Lopetegui is a dead man walking now as West Ham’s head coach.
For many there have been plenty of reasons to have sacked him already. You cannot lose in that manner at Spurs, while losing 3-0 at home to Chelsea was pretty indicative of what was to follow. The customary League Cup mauling at Liverpool hardly helped.But then you get thrashed at Nottingham Forest, destroyed by a laughing Arsenal, and then mugged in all its gory detail at Leicester.
No amount of statistics that showed we had 60 per cent possession and 31 shots - our highest ever in the Premier League era - changes the aching reality that that coach is out of his depth, players are confused - some openly defiant, it is alleged, at the training ground - and now Loopy has lost the away support.
Not often do those hardened travellers, the lads who toured Europe for three inspiring seasons only recently, turn on the coach. But that is what happened on Monday night, “sacked in the morning” boomed out of the away section. “How shit must you be, it’s only 2-0” was also evident.
Many, many managers would have been axed long ago, but for some reason David Sullivan thinks otherwise. Is it because it could cost £5m or so to get rid of the Spanish coach and his staff? Is it because we are only looking at the uninspiring out-of-work coaches as a replacement?
Or, is it that Sullivan is so stubborn, he will have to admit he made a glaring error to appoint Lopetegui in the first place.
It was against the advice of many in the management team - Mark Noble included, It is believed. It seems too that it was against the advice of technical director Tim Steidten, although that’s hard to tell because the German has this ability to distance himself from anything that turns at all messy.
But to keep giving the guy a number of games to turn things round is absolute nonsense. Things like this don’t change, they have an inevitable conclusion. And it’s never pretty.
There is so much wrong with what we are watching it’s hard to know where to start. Loopy wants to play possession football on the front foot, but he seems to ignore basic defensive principles and how you handle set pieces.
Defence has to be the cornerstone of everything, you can’t keep playing a high line - against Jamie Vardy, are you even sure of that? - and not concede goals by the bucketful.
Leicester did a David Moyes style job on us, deep defence, solid central block and counter attacking and never once did we try to change things. Substitutes seem to be some form of national lottery, throw them on and see what happens. Then do it again ten minutes later.
We started with Arron Wan-Bissaka at right back, and he finished on the left. We started Mo Kudus on the left and he finished on the right. Jarrod Bowen played right and then up front, the players are confused.
And it looks like they are treading water, waiting for the inevitable. There’s talk of another training ground row and a player dropped, there’s a toxic atmosphere at Rush Green and it’s not getting any better.
There’s hardly a word on social media now supporting the guy, and he has virtually a full squad to chose from with Kudus and Edson Alvarez clear of bans plus Carlos Soler - and even Niclas Fullkrug - back in action.
We have become a side that is used to losing with a coach that doesn’t know how to stop the rot. Go now and end the agony.
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