How Graham Potter's start at West Ham compares to Julen Lopetegui amid 'no complaints' admission

Graham Potter has had a tough start to life at West Ham, with the Irons continuing their struggles on Tuesday night with a defeat to lowly Wolves. It was hoped that Potter would hit the ground running at the London Stadium, even without him getting the chance to put his own stamp on this squad, but that hasn’t been the case.

Lopetegui did not fit in well at West Ham, but he was given a relatively short leash, managing only 20 league games before getting to boot. Potter will almost certainly get to have a run at next season regardless of results between now and the end of the season, but how does his start compare to Lopetegui’s? Here we take a look.

How did Julen Lopetegui get on in his first 10 West Ham games?

Lopetegui was sacked by West Ham on January 8 after 20 Premier League games in charge, and to make comparisons fair, we will focus only on league games here. In his first 10 league games, Lopetegui won three, lost five and drew two.

For context, the second 10 games, which Potter hasn’t yet had, brought three wins, four losses and three defeats.

How did Graham Potter compare to Julen Lopetegui in his first 10 games?

Potter has had an equally slow start to life at West Ham, and interestingly, he has had an identical record in his first 10 league games compared to Lopetegui, winning three, losing five and drawing two.

While there are additional factors, such as Potter not having a pre-season or a summer transfer window to work with, it’s clear that the board will expect to see improvement, or Potter will surely be feeling nervous heading into next season, with the clock potentially ticking from the word go.

What did Lopetegui say about his West Ham spell?

After getting the sack at West Ham, Lopetegui posted on social media: “Thank you to West Ham for the opportunity to manage this great club over the past six months. We are leaving with a sense of sadness, feeling it was too soon and that we were in position to still achieve our goals, especially after overcoming challenging situations and with a promising entire second half of the Premier League ahead.

“Thank you to the players for their commitment and hard work, and to all the staff at the training ground, who are truly high class. You made us feel at home, operating at an extraordinary level, and you will always hold a special place in our hearts. Thank you also to the fans, who have shown unwavering support through every high and low. I wish West Ham nothing but success in the future—once a Hammer, always a Hammer.”

What has Potter said about his slow start?

After West Ham continued their poor form against Wolves on Tuesday night, Potter said: “Credit to Wolves, I think they played well in the first half and pushed us back more than we wanted to be. We suffered after they scored, which was a bit of a deflection. And then we had to dig in a bit and show some resilience. We wanted to get more pressure on the ball, but we found it difficult.

"Had to get in at half-time (at 1-0) I think to just adjust things. And then second half we were a lot better. It was strange because the game wasn't, from our perspective, a good performance from us necessarily, but at the same time we had some chances that we probably felt, if you look at the big chances in the game, it's fairly even, so we were really disappointed with that. I think we need to attack better as well. That's something we have to do, we know that.

"We want to be a bit more dynamic, we want to be a bit faster with our attacks. I think we need to manage the game a little bit better, understand when we can go forward, when we can go a bit more direct, move a bit more vertical. We're sort of finding our way still with each other and I think it's a bit of work in progress. Some things have improved, some things have gone in the right direction, but still we need to do more."

The current Hammers boss added: “(We haven’t had a pre-season, we’ve had injuries to deal with and we’ve just had the international break but) that's the job and there's no complaints. As I said, we have to do better, I have to do better, that's the life we're in. Our supporters, again, are fantastic and they deserve better and demand more, so that's okay from us. We need to take that responsibility on.

"The players, like I said, the response in the second half was one of ‘okay, we know we weren't quite there’ for whatever reason and we need to accept the fact that we certainly changed our approach to the second half. Then we have to pick the bones out of it and go ‘okay, how do we go forward for the next eight games, try to win as many games as we can and get as many points as we can?’."

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