At the end of the 2023/24 Premier League season, after two stints in the role, David Moyes left his role as manager of West Ham United, replaced by Julen Lopetegui.
Despite three seasons in European competition, and one European trophy, Moyes found himself under constant scrutiny for his conservative style of play.
In the end this lack of aesthetics proved fatal, as fans bayed for a return to the fluid football of the mythologised ‘West Ham way.’
The appointment of ex-Real Madrid and Sevilla boss Lopetegui, whose most recent job was an ill-fated term at the helm of fellow Premier League club Wolves, would soon prove to be equally disappointing.
The Spaniard barely lasted into the new year before his departure from the club, but how did his tenure compare to that of his predecessor?
The first port of call when evaluating a manager’s performance with a club will inevitably be their league position.
When Lopetegui was sacked in early January following a crushing defeat to Manchester City, the Hammers sat 14th in the table, a disappointing return on a summer of heavy investment and high hopes.
The comparative league positions between the two managers highlights the gap in results clearly, with Moyes having his side in sixth at the same point of the season prior at which Lopetegui departed the club this year.
For all of the aspirations carried into the season, the reality was a side that could not match the success of its predecessor on the pitch.
But many of the fans’ voices calling for a change were not concerned with results, so much as with a style of play, a footballing philosophy more in line with other clubs of a similar stature competing in Europe.
Moyes had become synonymous with a rigid and defensive style that efficiently ground out results across the season, but rarely inspired the supporters.
When it worked, it propelled the club towards the top of the table, but when that defensive structure fell apart, the results were catastrophic.
West Ham suffered several crushing defeats in 2023 that overshadowed their previous successes in the eyes of many fans.
Dave Walker, host of The West Ham Way podcast, highlighted the impact of these results on Moyes’ relationship with the fans.
He said: “You can get away with playing a defensive approach and sacrificing entertaining football if you are qualifying for Europe, or if you are winning trophies.
“The trouble is that he carried on playing that defensive approach, sacrificing entertaining football, and conceded 74 goals in his final season, which is unforgivable really.
“The football was rubbish, the results were rubbish, we got trouncings on a regular basis, and I think that the majority of fans felt that he had to move on.”
West Ham were desperate to hold onto the European football that had become a fixture of their past three seasons, and aimed to evolve towards a more fluid and dominant style of play than Moyes was able to offer in hopes of securing it.
Lopetegui was appointed and was immediately provided with an arsenal of new recruits in the summer window to better facilitate the transition in style.
Max Kilman signed from Wolves, partnered in central defence by Nice’s Jean-Clair Todibo, who was poached from under the nose of admirers Juventus.
German marksman Niclas Fullkrug, Championship player of the year Crysencio Summerville, Brazilian teenager Luis Guilherme and out of favour Manchester United full-back Aaron Wan-Bissaka rounded out what many deemed to be a stellar window for the club.
However, with financial backing on that scale comes expectations of equally impressive results.
Walker suggested that this rising bar of expectation put Lopetegui at a disadvantage with the West Ham fans before a ball was even kicked, and partly explains why the mood soured so quickly under his leadership.
He said: “It is normal to raise your expectations when you get a new manager and have a good transfer window, which is part of the problem, because with high expectations comes high pressure.
“If you do not deliver against that, that is where the problem starts to rise with the fans.”
Lopetegui’s results were far from stellar, but equally damning was the lack of tactical improvement, and especially the lack of identity that fans were so desperate for.
Instead of fluid, attacking football, West Ham descended into poor organisation and tactical dysfunction.
The team never seemed comfortable with their new roles, and the result was a chaotic structure that only resembled Lopetegui’s sides of old in flashes.
Jack Elderton, football analyst and editor at Analytics United, attributed part of this uncertainty to the extra emphasis on individual improvisation under Lopetegui.
He said: “You are starting from Moyes’ highly structured, rigid approach that involved defending more zonally and dominating zones and attacking in a not dissimilar way.
“There was more responsibility on the success of the system under Moyes.
“Then it is about how you can execute within that system, whereas there was generally more responsibility for everyone in the team in terms of the immediate decision making within a match under Lopetegui.”
The systemic issues in implementing Lopetegui’s brand of football was felt in aesthetics and statistics both, with a regression for the Hammers’ quality in front of goal undercutting hopes for a successful attacking philosophy.
While the volume of shots at goal went up under Lopetegui, the quality of those shots became significantly worse, with West Ham struggling to generate clear chances at the rate they managed under Moyes.
Moyes’ counter attacking style left more space in the opposition third to exploit and fewer blockers when the shot eventually came, but under Lopetegui’s higher line West Ham faced deeper blocks, which they soon proved to be incapable of breaking down.
The result was a significant drop in potency in front of goal, despite a rise in several supporting metrics that would intuitively indicate an improvement in West Ham’s attacking game.
The gains in their share of possession played against the strengths of the individuals in the squad, and what made them so successful under Moyes, with their improved possession directly affecting their ability to create positive chances.
The team’s lack of comfort in the opposition third extends to their out of possession play as well, with Elderton explaining how Lopetegui’s systemic failings developed in these areas.
He said: “The biggest area of dysfunctionality under Lopetegui was with recovery.
“Under Moyes it was really basic principles: recover back to a 4-4-2, and if someone front two was not recovering then a striker would become the left winger, and then that left winger who was taking too long to recover would become one of the front two.
“It is super basic, easy to understand principles of what to do when you lose the ball in the final third.
“Now you have an intent to counter press, trying to win the ball back in the first two three seconds after you have lost it or forced the first pass backwards. Some players understand that better than others.”
Counter pressing is a staple of high intensity, proactive football, and is something that Lopetegui tried to implement during his time at the club.
The success of these efforts was marred by the personnel available to him, many of whom were brought in to enact Moyes’ more rigid and static out of possession approach.
Elderton added: “Pushing Soucek so far up the pitch while another midfielder sits near your centre backs puts you in a position where, if you want your team to counter press, you just do not really have the numbers in the centre of the pitch to actually be able to do it effectively.”
By comparing the amount of tackles made by a team in their attacking third, you can determine generally how they approach pressing play.
A high number of tackles in that area suggests the team commits men forward to press and counter press the opposition, hoping to win the ball back quickly as close to the opponents goal as possible to produce high quality chances.
West Ham under Lopetegui had the third lowest figure for tackles in the attacking third in comparison to the rest of the league for the 2024-25 season, suggesting they were not a team that effectively counter-pressed.
This is not an indictment of the team’s quality on its own, however, it is a marker as to Lopetegui’s struggles to implement the style of play which he was expected to bring about, in which you would hope to see a higher number of turnovers for West Ham in forward areas.
With inefficient attacking play and an inability to counter press, despite Lopetegui’s tactical intentions, the team found themselves in a tactical no man’s land.
Their in-possession play was producing less threat than before, but committing men forward in half-hearted attempts to press meant the side also no longer had the defensive rigidity that Moyes had instilled in his seasons at the club through his low-block.
The result was a West Ham side in tactical disarray, relying on the individual quality of players like Jarrod Bowen and Mohammed Kudus to pick up the slack where possible.
If given more time and money to bring in new players, then perhaps Lopetegui could have crafted a side that could compete during the 2025-26 season.
But for a club desperate to capitalise on their recent successes, time was not something West Ham were willing to provide unconditionally, and instead Lopetegui’s tenure will be remembered as a turbulent moment in West Ham’s least remarkable season in years.
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