West Ham have announced former Wolves boss Julen Lopetegui as their new manager on a two-year deal.
Lopetegui, who has the option of extending his contract for a further year, replaces the outgoing David Moyes and will begin work at the London Stadium on July 1.
The 57-year-old has an impressive coaching background having had spells in charge of Real Madrid, FC Porto, Sevilla and the Spain national team.
He has been out of work since leaving his post as Wolves boss on the eve of the Premier League season.
“I feel very happy, first of all, to be able to be part of the future of this big Club,” said Lopetegui. “We will try to put our stamp on the Club.
“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.
“I am where I want to be. I am here because I want to be here and for us it was a fantastic day when we closed our agreement here because we our commitment is 100 per cent to be here. We had other opportunities but I am very happy that West Ham chose me because I chose West Ham too, so we are really happy about this.
“We came here with the idea and the thought to make a big, big noise. That’s why we came here, and we are excited by this challenge. Of course, we are going to do our best to help the Club and the team to achieve to achieve the best level and to achieve our aims. I assure the fans that they are going to be key in all our achievements.”
Reacting to the appointment, talkSPORT’s Simon Jordan paid tribute to the foundations laid by Moyes and says Lopetegui is ‘lucky’ to be inheriting a good playing squad.
“He is someone who has managed big clubs and comes with a perception that you’re going to achieve big things,” said the White and Jordan host.
“I think David Moyes did a pretty spectacular job for most of the time at West Ham, in terms of what they were when he inherited them, saved them first time around from their own acts of self-harm, and then came back and rectified the problems from the so-called highfalutin manager Manuel Pellegrini, and his reward for that was to get a barrage of criticism because his team didn’t play front-foot football.
“There may be some fairness in that because ultimately David had the chance to change that and he chose not to, and if his ideologies are not how the fans want to see their team play and the owner wants to see, then he suffers. But you can’t argue with the work he did at West Ham.
“And now, this guy coming in, we’ll see. He has got lots to say for himself about what he thinks he’s entitled to and what he thinks he should get.
“He took the Real Madrid job and people will say, ‘You don’t get the Real Madrid job for nothing’, but he actually did get it for nothing, because he only lasted 14 games.
“With that in mind we’ll see if the reputation and the perception of this manager manifests itself into an outcome.
“He did a decent job for Wolves, they were struggling at the time he went in there and he solidified it and kept them safe from any kind of jeopardy.
“He’s inheriting a good base to work from at West Ham, he’s very lucky.”