Julen Lopetegui addresses relationship with David Sullivan as West Ham manager hopes for more time

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Evening Standard

·7. November 2024

Julen Lopetegui addresses relationship with David Sullivan as West Ham manager hopes for more time

Hammers under big pressure to beat Everton after nightmare start to the season

Julen Lopetegui insists he has a “very good” relationship with West Ham chairman David Sullivan and has asked for time to turn the team’s form around.

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The Hammers have taken just 11 points from their opening 10 league games this season and sit 14th in the Premier League after hiring Lopetegui to replace the outgoing David Moyes in the summer.

The club’s struggle for form — which reached a head last weekend with the heavy 3-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest — leaves Lopetegui under pressure in his job earlier than he and the club would have expected.

West Ham play host to 16th-place Everton and the scrutiny over whether Lopetegui is the right man to lead the club forward will increase if they are beaten by the Toffees at the London Stadium.

Asked whether he has a good relationship with Sullivan, Lopetegui revealed: “I talk with him a lot. It’s good, very good. I talk every week with him.

“I talk with him every week, as normal. I am not going to say what we talk about with him. I talk every week with him about the different situation of the team, but [the discussion this week was] not any different to any other week.”

Lopetegui stated that he hopes to be given time by the West Ham board in order to get the team clicking.

“All of us, we want time but we want wins”, he said. “We know we have to win matches. We have won matches but for me it’s not enough.

“It is true we are trying to do one kind of project, one kind of idea, as one pack, and step by step I am sure we are going to achieve it. Winning allows you to work better, to be more calm.

“For the players too, that’s why the focus is always to win. But we are trying to do our way, our idea and to translate it to the players. Step by step we are doing things that in a short time we are going to be able to see.

“Any moment is an opportunity to turn these moments into a good moment.”

On whether he is feeling the pressure, the 58-year-old replied: “Listen, I have lived with extra pressure from my first day as a coach. I know my job, what we are doing here and what we can do. I try to put the focus on the daily work and the next match.

“I understand the question; we always work under pressure and we have to accept that it is normal in our job.

“I am sure that we have a lot of time to change and to turn this bad moment into a good moment.”

Lopetegui revealed he will spend part of the upcoming international break visiting his father.

“In that period I am going to see my father for two or three days. He is 94 and I want to stay with him. After, I will come back to work here.”