“Shocking today, absolutely abominable” – Former defender calls West Ham’s start under Lopetegui a ‘disgrace’

Jason Cundy has been fiercely critical of West Ham United’s start to life under Julen Lopetegui, calling their final performance against Chelsea a “disgrace” in particular.

Lopetegui replaced David Moyes last summer despite the Scot winning the 2022-23 UEFA Europa League title, the club’s first major trophy since 1980.

West Ham wanted to usher in a new era at the London Stadium with attacking football and big names and therefore backed Lopetegui with a generous summer spend.

But so far, things haven’t gone to plan. After taking just four points from their first four Premier League games under Lopetegui, the Hammers suffered a crushing 3-0 home defeat to London rivals Chelsea on Saturday, going 2-0 down inside 18 minutes thanks to a brace from Nicolas Jackson.

West Ham now sit 14th in the Premier League table with just one win from five games so far.

Jason Cundy slams West Ham’s ‘scandalous’ performance

While it would be ridiculously early for Lopetegui to fear for his job, Cundy believes the Spaniard is already under pressure and called their performance against Chelsea a “disgrace”.

“Number one on the list, the West Ham manager, (they were) shocking today, absolutely appalling and if he doesn’t sort it out quickly there will be calls for him to be sacked,” the former Chelsea and Tottenham centre-back said as he picked his winners and losers from Saturday’s action for talkSPORT.

“The West Ham fans wanted David Moyes out, they wanted flowing attacking football, but I’ll tell you what they also wanted, they wanted results, and at the moment they’re not getting them.”

Cundy added: “That’s not what they see at all, they don’t see flowing attacking football, they don’t keep a single clean sheet, or very few, they don’t get any results.

“Today in the first half, the first 25-30 minutes, they were a disgrace, they didn’t give Chelsea a single blow.

“They had a humiliating defeat at home to Chelsea, he (Lopetegui) has to sort that out quickly because things aren’t going well for West Ham at the moment.”

Top photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images