West Ham United manager Julen Lopetegui has big plans for the football club. And the Spaniard has a very clear idea in mind about how he wants to get West Ham to the top of the English game.
Julen Lopetegui apparently wants to bring six new faces to the London Stadium this summer, but I personally believe he’ll end up signing at least eight players.
The squad left behind by David Moyes was an extremely unbalanced and ageing one. Julen Lopetegui of West Ham United during training at Rush Green on July 03, 2024 in Romford, England.
One of Lopetegui’s chief remits will be to bring down the average age of the squad and in fairness to him, he’s made inroads into doing that already. Angelo Ogbonna, Said Benrahma and Ben Johnson have left whilst Luis Guilherme and Max Kilman have come in.
Wes Foderingham has been signed as well of course, but the next few signings will undoubtedly be in their early to mid-20s.
And now Lopetegui has opened up on how he plans to go about his transfer business at West Ham…
Julen Lopetegui drops big West Ham transfer business hint
Everyone knows the size of the task that faces the Spaniard at the London Stadium, with so many new signings needed. However, he might just be going down a route that not many people expected, and I absolutely love it.
Lopetegui spoke to The Sun today (print edition July 7th, page 58).
The Spaniard said, “We know there are some big clubs who have great teams. We need to be a club that finds players that we can make better to improve our team.”
So it seems like Lopetegui is clearly suggesting that he wants to implement the ‘Red Bull’ system at West Ham, whereby a club buys unproven stars before coaching them to reach their full potential, and then selling them on for huge profits.
This is exactly what the West Ham fans have been crying out for over the past few years. In order to compete with the biggest clubs in world football, we need to sign elite young players with high ceiling BEFORE they become stars.
The job of the coaching staff is to then turn those talented youngsters into top-class players, who we can then sell on for massive profits before performing the cycle once again.
However, there is one big caveat – the proof will be in the pudding. David Moyes repeatedly suggested that he wanted to emulate the ‘Red Bull’ model at the London Stadium, without actually doing it.
So far, Lopetegui has signed one unproven youngster in the form of Luis Guilherme, and two experienced players – Wes Foderingham and Max Kilman.
So we will see over the course of the next year or so whether Julen Lopetegui does actually want implement the ‘Red Bull’ model at West Ham.
