Amongst thousands of other supporters, commentators and pundits, I have not been slow to criticise Julen Lopetegui for his hesitancy to deploy some of the riches we acquired during the Sumer transfer window: In particular, Jean-Clair Todibo was the subject of an earlier article of mine seeing as he is supposed to be a high quality defender yet he cannot get a start. Mavropanos seems to be the favorite candidate to accompany Kilman even given his error-strewn displays so far.
It seems the answer to my – and many thousands of fans- concern is already out there and we saw the 100% justification of our head coach’s strategy at the weekend.
So, frustrated that Todibo still waits for a full-time squad berth, Soler only came on for 20 minutes (more on him shortly) and Luis Guilherme can’t even get onto the bench, I took to looking back through Julen Lopetegui’s words regarding bringing foreign players into the Premier League. In a report by the Telegraph. The Hammers’ head coach described his worries for new recruits from outside the Premier League:
“For the players, it’s sometimes not easy to adapt to this pace or this rhythm, this demand. They need time to understand what happens around them. That’s why we try to help them
This was prior to Carlos Soler’s Fulham debut, which almost resulted in his receiving two yellow cards. He was obviously half a yard off the pace, as Lopetegui had cautioned in a previous interview. To be fair, Todibo appeared lethargic during his first-half debut before being replaced, and throughout Rodriguez’s debut, I just said one word: “S-L-O-W.”
Lopetegui clearly understands the extra rigours and pace of the PL in a way that perhaps we armchair (or desktop) critics forget, watching week-in, week-out: There is a long acclimatisation process required for non-Premier League recruits to adapt whereas others like Aaron Wan Bissaka are able to go straight into the team.
Having Seen how close Soler came to disaster in his 20 minutes, I need to be a little more forgiving if Lopetegui shields his new signings until they’ve had long enough to acclimatise.
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