Once in a while the football calendar throws up a game like this, where whichever manager loses is likely to have worked his last day in the job. Welcome to ‘El Sackico’.
Recent form has admittedly been worse for the likes of Ipswich and doomed Southampton than for either West Ham or Wolves, who meet on Monday night at the London Stadium. But it is the steady decline of these two great clubs that has placed both managers on the brink.
While Julen Lopetegui could win this game and still be replaced by West Ham’s board - who have been busy planning for life after the Spaniard over the last five days - it is Wolves whose campaign is in graver danger.
Wolves finished 10th in the 2021/22 season under Bruno Lage, then 13th under Lopetegui, now in the opposite dugout, and 14th under Gary O’Neil last season. Only Saints sit below them this term, and defeats in their last two outings to Bournemouth (4-2) and Everton (4-0) have smacked of results that will ensure O’Neil does not last the season.
O’Neil’s side have shipped a sobering 36 goals in 14 league games, making theirs far and away the leakiest defence in the division. Following a 5-3 defeat at Brentford in October, they sacked set-piece coach Jack Wilson. Respectfully, it has not made one iota of difference.
Wolves fans can be forgiven for looking up at 10th-place Bournemouth and feeling that the Cherries made the right call in swapping O’Neil for Andoni Iraola. He has made Bournemouth upwardly mobile, while Wolves are only trending down.
Now the West Midlands club come face-to-face with their previous manager, Lopetegui, in a reunion that can go well for a maximum of one party and will quite probably go badly for both.
It felt like the beginning of the end for Lopetegui when West Ham conceded five goals in a single half against Arsenal a fortnight ago. The 3-1 defeat to Leicester at the King Power Stadium last Tuesday felt even more damaging.
Lopetegui’s side had 31 shots in the game and saw 61 per cent possession but were undone on the counter-attack in Ruud van Nistelrooy’s first game in charge of the Foxes. Lopetegui also made his 12th half-time substitution of the season - the most of any manager in the league and surely an admission that his game plans are seldom working.
It is hard to see West Ham’s approach on Lopetegui as anything other than buying more time to choose a successor
Plenty felt Lopetegui was gone that night. Asked whether he feared for his job, he replied that his only thought was on preparing for the Wolves game.
And after much deliberation and a good deal of disagreement over his ideal successor, the West Ham board decided on Thursday to keep him in post at least for that.
It was hard to see that call as anything other than to merely buy them more time to choose a replacement they can all agree on, and this could still prove Lopetegui’s final match of an ill-fated five months at the helm. One thing is crystal clear. If the Hammers lose to a side battered by Everton last time out, it will be.
