West Ham under-18 player’s jaw-dropping story about Julen Lopetegui proves just how bad the Spaniard was
Jethro Medine is highly rated at West Ham United, but his progression may have been set back while Julen Lopetegui was at the club.
West Ham made a terrible error by appointing Julen Lopetegui back in July of last year.
The Spaniard seriously underperformed at the London Stadium and was sacked just six months later, with Graham Potter coming in to replace him.
Jarrod Bowen has recently highlighted how the performances of West Ham under Julen Lopetegui seriously lacked intensity, and he’s bang on the money.
It wasn’t just the performances on the pitch under the 58-year-old that raised concern though.
Julen Lopetegui fell out with numerous West Ham players, including the likes of Jean-Clair Todibo and Mohammed Kudus.
West Ham youngster Jethro Medine tells shocking Julen Lopetegui story
The 18-year-old right-back has been in fine form this season.
He has made 17 appearances for the under-18s this season, and he is clearly one of our brighter young talents.
The London-born teenager signed his first professional contract with West Ham in January of this year.
Medine possesses absolutely rapid pace and is an exceptional tackler.
The Hammers starlet is actually very similar to Aaron Wan-Bissaka in the way that he plays.
Interestingly, Wan-Bissaka’s name came up when Medine was telling a truly damning story about Lopetegui.
However, whilst Wan-Bissaka ended up looking really good from Medine’s story, Lopetegui’s ineptness shone through brightly.
Medine highlighted just how clueless Lopetegui was at West Ham, when speaking on the Let’s Talk Football podcast:
“There was one session yeh, when Lopetegui was still at the club, they’ve already started. He threw me a bib and said, ‘go play, you’re playing striker’. Wan-Bissaka comes up to me and says, ‘where do you play?’, and I said, ‘I’m a right-back, I don’t want to play striker’. He said, ‘go on you can play right-back, I will go there’. He’s a good role model still.“
I mean, what on earth was Lopetegui thinking by throwing on one of our talented youngsters in a completely different position to what he’s used to?
The Spaniard clearly didn’t know what he was doing regarding tactics, whilst his man management skills were obviously lacking as well.
Julen Lopetegui’s shocking man-management
It’s a huge concern that he lacked any kind of knowledge about some of our talented under-18 players.
If Julen Lopetegui didn’t know what position Jethro Medine played in, you can bet your life he wasn’t clued up on the other players either.
If he ended up staying in charge at the London Stadium, who’s to say that we wouldn’t have lost numerous talented young players in the summer?
Graham Potter is streets ahead of Julen Lopetegui, and the West Ham youth teams were surely delighted when the Englishman replaced the Spaniard.
