What has left Lopetegui on the brink at West Ham after just 14 games?

Julen Lopetegui is only 14 Premier League games into his West Ham career, and needs to win the 15th to save his job.

The former Spain and Real Madrid manager, forged in the 21st-century home of flowing football, was meant to mark the arrival of a new era in east London after the pragmatically successful but technically limited David Moyes reign.

It has not worked out that way. The five months since his appointment have been overshadowed by indecisive tactics, shattered confidence and new additions struggling to settle.

Things have turned so quickly that this is already the third iteration of a feature searching for answers on where things have gone wrong.

With at least some members of the West Ham board now unconvinced he is the man to take them forward, it may be the last with the match now seen “effectively as a cup final” by his superiors.

It is bewildering the speed of the collapse under a competent manager who did admirably to keep Wolves in the Premier League 18 months ago. Doubly so with the financial support he has been given, to the tune of £130m last summer.

Monday 9th December 6:30pm


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Such spending inevitably raises expectations around a new manager but serious questions also have to be asked of Tim Steidten, the man who led that recruitment drive.

Of the Hammers’ five big-money arrivals, Niclas Fullkrug has managed only 74 minutes of football and taken until the first week of December to score his first goal. Those who have featured more regularly have offered little more promise, with PSG loanee Carlos Soler, a small outlay in comparison, the lone bright spark.

Even so, the manager is always the first to take the flak. And given the performances of those players who were already at the London Stadium prior to his arrival, the responsibility for the start which has left the Hammers closer to the drop zone than the European spots lies squarely with him.

The manner of Tuesday’s defeat to Leicester which has pushed him to the brink, cannot be mitigated by Ruud van Nistelrooy’s managerial bounce. It did not come in isolation, and the schoolboy defending which gifted the hosts victory follows an increasingly concerning trend.

Jean-Claire Todibo, a France international and one-time Barcelona player, was meant to be an elite signing but no defender across the division has made more errors leading to an opposition shot. It is merely good fortune that only one has led to a goal.

Alongside him, the performances of Max Kilman, a seasoned Premier League professional who played every minute of last season at Wolves, have been below the standards he has previously set.

Kilman made a howler for Leicester’s third goal and has looked a shadow of himself for much of the season despite playing every minute so far.

Lopetegui’s insistence on pushing his wide defenders forward to help with the build-up play does leave those in the middle inevitably exposed, especially when he also demands such a high line as at the King Power on Tuesday.

“l cannot believe how they set up defensively on the halfway line. It just made no sense,” said Tim Sherwood on Soccer Special.

His full-backs are making almost double the runs into the opposition box as in Moyes’ final season, but those left to do the defending are not up to that extra pressure.

A fragile defence would at least be easier to stomach if signs the direction of travel towards a more expansive style were clear.

Lopetegui can point to hints of its implementation with nearly half a season gone. West Ham are playing a lower proportion of long passes than any point in the last decade, seeing more of the ball in the opposition box and producing a higher xG than at any point across the Moyes era.

But metrics aside, West Ham’s fans and hierarchy are seemingly watching a team in decline. All the build-up play in the world means nothing when the Hammers are so bad in both boxes.

It was perfectly summed up at Leicester. West Ham had 31 shots to Leicester’s eight – but the quality of the hosts’ efforts were more than twice as good, and they looked likely to score with almost every attack.

The Hammers are too easy to play through and ineffective in attack. They are on course to concede almost as many goals as in Moyes’ porous final season, but their shot conversion has dropped from the sixth-best in the league to the fourth worst, largely as the quality of chances has decreased significantly.

Lopetegui’s personnel issues in attack come despite the creative and technical quality of Jarrod Bowen, Mohammed Kudus and Lucas Paqueta, who created 94 chances between them last season.

The drop-off of the latter’s form is particularly alarming given he contributed almost half of the trio’s output in Moyes’ last 12 months, and leaves the manager with questions to answer.

Things reached a new low in midweek when the Brazilian was benched, with Lopetegui apparently unsure how best to use him.

The maverick midfielder found a home in floating off the left under Moyes. Now moved more centrally to contribute within West Ham’s slower build-up, Paqueta is creating more chances than last season but his expected assists have almost halved, and he has not made a single Premier League goal this term.

His manager’s confusion was most apparent in a 3-0 defeat at Nottm Forest earlier in the season, where Paqueta was tasked with playing on the shoulder of the home defence to latch onto Jarrod Bowen’s balls in behind. It looked more like the two players had each other’s instructions.

Even if the creative trio were firing on all cylinders, they are crying out for a dynamic forward to fill the void created by Michail Antonio’s gradual decline.

The 34-year-old continues to work hard up front, but his best years increasingly look behind him. Attempts to find a genuine rival for his spot have fallen by the wayside for several years but few have been more muddled than the signing of Fullkrug, who himself turns 32 in February and arrived with a history of injury problems.

How West Ham ended up betting on the fortunes of a talented but hardly mobile forward, who has spent far more time on the treatment table than in the squad to date, when their No 1 target was Aston Villa’s 20-year-old, reliably fit, all-action forward Jhon Duran is difficult to explain.

Add it to the other question marks casting a shadow over West Ham’s season: when will they see a return on the Premier League’s fourth-biggest net spend? What has happened to Kilman and Todibo? How is a team with such creative players creating such low-quality chances?

And the biggest one of all. How much longer can Lopetegui hold on?

Watch West Ham vs Wolves on Sky Sports Premier League on Monday from 6.30pm, kick-off 8pm.