While West Ham United and Wolverhampton Wanderers count the cost of relegation and consider what went wrong, it seems AS already have the answer.
The newspaper covers both clubs today and firmly believe that sacking Julen Lopetegui was the issue for the relegated duo.
West Ham ‘particularly striking’
The Spanish newspaper explains that while Lopetegui is preparing for the World Cup with Qatar, his two former clubs have ‘hit rock bottom’ with relegation from the Premier League.
They are, of course, West Ham and Wolves, who, according to AS, were ‘much better situations’ under Lopetegui than their current one.
The newspaper says West Ham’s case is ‘particularly striking’ as Lopetegui was sacked in January last year with the team in 13th place and ‘alive in the FA Cup’.
West Ham’s owners decided to sack him, despite a ‘favourable schedule’ and take a chance on Graham Potter instead. That gamble ‘couldn’t have gone worse’. He worsened the team’s performance and left them further behind where he had found them.
He continued this season but left West Ham fighting against relegation. His replacement, Nuno Espirito Santo, also failed to keep them up. Now they’re in the Championship again, but 15 months earlier, under Lopetegui, the ‘team was safe from any danger’.
Similar at Wolves
Something similar happened with Wolves. Lopetegui ‘saved them two seasons ago’ when they were bottom. That included overcoming the biggest points gap to safety in their history.
He succeed but the ‘lack of an ambitious project’ led him to depart. According to AS, Wolves have languished since and now they’re a Championship side too.
As far as they’re concerned, with Lopetegui in charge, ‘things were better, much better’. And people are only realising that now that West Ham and Wolves are in the Championship.
Of course, it completely ignores everything that was going on with both clubs at the time. and we’re sure that fans from both clubs would agree with the take completely. AS, though, aren’t passing up the opportunity for some revisionism in defence of the Spanish coach.