Julen Lopetegui brought favoured players into his squad from La Liga, Spain’s first tier of football, in August of last year. So desperate was he in fact to bring in [Carlos Soler](https://www.claretandhugh.info/soler-question-doesnt-seem-quite-so-silly-now/) and Guido Rodriguez that he booted out West Ham’s Nayef Aguerd and James Ward-Prowse on hastily arranged deadline day loans, to make way for his ‘familiars’.
However in doing this Lopoetegui made a fundamental misjudgement which Graham Potter is in danger of repeating.
J’Lo assumed that the Spanish ‘La Liga’ and the Premier League are of equal calibre and players are interchangeable.
As we saw with Rodriguez and with Soler, the difference in speed, pace and fitness requirements are huge between the English and Spanish leagues. Carlos Soler has taken most of the season to get upto speed whilst Guido Rodriguez arguably doesn’t have it in his legs to get to Premier League pace.
So with this in mind, when West Ham loanee Nayef Aguerd was tested last night – taking on Manchester United in the Europa League- there were clear signs of the ‘old’ error – strewn play which was a permanent fixture in Aguerd’s Premier League play.
_If that was an audition, Aguerd failed to impress._
West Ham have leaked that ‘t_he manager really rates Aguerd’_ but if Potter had sat in his armchair and watched Aguerd’s performance against, let’s face it, an utterly toothless Manchester United, hopefully he is having a rethink. If that was Aguerd’s ‘West Ham’ audition, the watching head coach hopefully hit the ‘thumbs down’ button.
Mavropanos-style errors, lapses and ‘holes’ where he should have been reminded fans of what Aguerd provides and hopefully shows Potter that the Moroccan is not the answer to West Ham’s defensive frailties and what may ‘excel’ in La Liga is not good enough for Premier League-level examination.
The Premier League is a cut above La Liga: Aguerd’s frailties against modest Premier League opponents were exposed last night after excelling domestically for Real Sociedad and the best solution would be to sell him and bring in a younger, better equipped Premier League-level Centre back.