Julen Lopetegui has told fans to be patient and to wait until May to make any judgement on his performance as West Ham boss.
The Spaniard has come under early fire after replacing David Moyes in the summer, having won just one game from his opening seven in all competitions.
Consecutive thrashings at the hands of Chelsea and Liverpool, in which eight goals were conceded, has led to the volume amongst disgruntled supporters turned up a notch, many of which are calling for the return of Moyes so soon after his departure.
Many of those fans, though, seem to be conveniently overlooking the fact that the four games Lopetegui has lost so far have all come against teams currently sitting in the top five of the Premier League table. Most other teams that lose to Aston Villa, Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool this season won’t be calling for their manager to be sacked.
But this is West Ham and some West Ham fans aren’t interested in any of that. Veruca Salt showed more patience towards Willy Wonka.
And ahead of West Ham’s trip to Brentford on Saturday afternoon, Lopetegui has told West Ham fans to show more patience in the job he’s trying to do and that they need to wait until the end of the season to judge the job he’s doing.
Speaking to BBC Sport, he said: “The coach’s job is always like this.
“We have experience about this and we are thinking how to improve the team, to be able to play better and develop our skills to win matches.
“This is our work and this is the high pressure I can feel every day as a coach. I think the Premier League has 38 matches and we’ll talk in May.”
It’s a fair response to fans who have neglected just how much work this team needed this season. Not only has Lopetegui had to navigate a difficult run of fixtures so early in his east London tenure, he has also had to integrate nine new players in to the squad and completely overhaul the playing style, from a conservative, defensive-minded approach to a pressing, possession based and forward thinking mentality.
Getting all of that to work, and work well, takes time, a lot longer than seven games.
But the former Sevilla, Real Madrid and Spain boss also acknowledged the importance of beating Brentford this weekend as pressure continues to grow.
“It’s always important to get a win,” he added.
“Above all when you lost the last two matches as we did.
“For us, that’s why it’s always important and the Brentford match is going to be like this – important, three points against a very good team.
“We know we were going to have a lot of work and a lot of problems. Always one win increases your confidence, increases a lot of good thinks for you and we work for that.”
