Lopetegui to bring five assistants to West Ham
Julen Lopetegui: Last job was as Wolves Head Coach from November 2022 to September 2023
Written by Training Ground Guru —
New West Ham Head Coach Julen Lopetegui is bringing five staff with him to the London Stadium.
The former Spain, Porto, Real Madrid, Sevilla and Wolves boss was announced as the successor to David Moyes today (May 23rd) and will officially begin work July 1st.
West Ham said the appointment marked the “next step” in a “new and growing football strategy, which gained pace in July 2023 with the arrival of Tim Steidten as Technical Director.”
Lopetegui will bring five assistants, all of whom worked with him during his time at Wolves from November 2022 to September 2023. They are:
- Pablo Sanz (Assistant Head Coach)
- Oscar Caro (Head of Performance & Assistant Coach)
- Juan Peinado (Head of Analysis & Assistant Coach)
- Borja De Alba (Fitness Coach)
- Edu Rubio (Technical Coach)
Xavi Valero will remain as Goalkeeper Coach, having joined under former manager Manuel Pellegrini in June 2018 and continued under Moyes. Valero is Spanish, as are Lopetegui and the rest of the assistants he has brought in.
In a statement welcoming Lopetegui and the rest of his staff, West Ham said the Head Coach was “widely respected for his clear football philosophy, flexible tactical approach, competitive character and man-management skills.”
Interestingly, there was no mention of his son Daniel, who had worked as a Performance Analyst at Wolves and was widely touted to join him in East London. Nor was there mention of Mark Robson, who had stepped up from Under-23s Lead to become First-Team Coach in August 2023.
Robson was not among the staff who West Ham announced would be leaving yesterday. They were: Nick Davies (Fitness Coach), Rob Newman (Head of Recruitment), Jamie Osman (Head of Analysis), Billy McKinlay (Assistant), Kevin Nolan (Assistant), John Heitinga (First-Team Coach), Henry Newman (Assistant) and Alan Irvine (Technical Advisor)
Lopetegui said: “I feel that we have a fantastic platform. I think the last few years have been very good years to have this base, of course, but my ambition as a coach is always to be better and better, to achieve more and bigger aims and to encourage and improve the players, the team, and to compete because football is about this – to compete. We are very ambitious about this.”
Steidten added: “We are very pleased to welcome Julen and his staff to our club. He was a stand-out candidate to become our Head Coach and I am personally delighted that we have chosen to work together. His career shows that, wherever he has coached, he has improved players and teams, and we are looking forward to seeing him work with our squad.
“He thinks deeply about the game, he is tactically astute and he has shown he can adapt to work in different leagues, in different countries, with national teams, and in each situation he has shown his outstanding qualities. Julen is highly experienced in the way we will now work at West Ham and I am looking forward to working with him to grow a successful future for the Club.”
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