West Ham news: Opinion – ‘Too early’ to talk about Julen Lopetegui losing his job

I’m struggling to find reasons why Julen Lopetegui doesn’t work out at West Ham.

If you look at their fixtures and the teams they lost to (Chelsea, Liverpool, Aston Villa etc.) you will see that there are many of the top teams. Other than that, the only team they lost to was Nottingham Forest, but Forest were in the top three at the time. Other teams that you would generally expect to beat or get results did.

It always takes time for a new coach and players to adapt. What West Ham fans wanted was a manager who played expansive, possession-based, easy-on-the-eye football, and I don’t think that’s what Lopetegui is.

You should be careful what you wish for. What David Moyes did in terms of taking West Ham to Europe and winning the Conference League trophy, they were probably punching a bit above their weight.

It will take time, but they definitely have a good enough squad. When you look at the players they have and the quality of these players, they should be getting better results. You can expect results to pick up over the next few fixtures and towards December, if they don’t then that’s when questions need to start being asked.

But talk of sacking him during this international break is too early. He had just stepped into the role, but expectations were much higher. Ultimately for West Ham it is about staying in the Premier League, if they can get into the European spots they will do great.

Management is about time. The players need to do better but the manager needs to be given some time to recover. I don’t think firing him and trying to rebuild with the players he brought in is the right answer right now.

Fara Williams was speaking to BBC Sport’s Nicola Pearson