Julen Lopetegui brought Max Kilman to West Ham United not long after he replaced David Moyes at the London Stadium.
West Ham paid Wolves £40 million to bring Max Kilman to the London Stadium back in July, and he has already proven to be an exceptional addition for the club.
Max Kilman has stood out in each of the four games that he’s played for West Ham so far this season, and he has proven why Julen Lopetegui was so keen to bring him to the London Stadium.
The West Ham head coach managed him during his spell in charge of Wolves, so he obviously knows him inside out.
Lopetegui clearly trusts Kilman unconditionally, and it was claimed that the former Wolves man was in contention to become the new Hammers captain, before Jarrod Bowen was handed the armband.
The Kilman signing was evidence of how ambitious Lopetegui is to take the Hammers to the next level.
One of the key strengths the 27-year-old possesses is his ability to play out from the back, and that in itself proves how Lopetegui wants his team to play.
Max Kilman takes an obvious dig at David Moyes
Kilman played against Moyes’s West Ham teams plenty of times during his spell with Wolves.
However, he’s now part of the Hammers family, after he swapped Molineux for the London Stadium two months ago.
The 27-year-old is clearly a very big fan of Lopetegui, but reading between the lines, the same cannot be said for Moyes.
And Kilman took a real back-handed swipe at the Scot, when speaking to WHUFC.com.
The centre-back said, “I actually spoke to a supporter when I first signed. He told me about when Ron Greenwood was the manager and played the attractive, attacking football. And, of course, with Lopetegui being the boss now, that’s what he’s trying to implement. So, hopefully we can be more exciting and play more on the front foot.“
“It was a massive honour to come back here and to work under him again, which is obviously brilliant. He’s a great manager with his team, and I think coming to a Club that has a lot of ambition to do well and wants to carry on the success they’ve had in previous years is great,” Kilman continued.
“I think he’s got a will to improve players. He did a great job while he was at Wolves. Now, coming here, he has the same kind of ethos as a manager, and he wants everyone to improve as a player, improve as a team, and he is really passionate about his work. He’s great to work under, and we’re determined to bring more success to this Club.“
Lopetegui keen for his West Ham team to play proper football
Moyes got results, that’s the bottom line.
It’s also worth remembering that he guided us to our first major trophy since 1980.
However, the style of football became so turgid in the end that many Hammers fans completely lost the enthusiasm to actually go and watch the team.
There’s a lot to be said for success, but the fact that football is an entertainment business seems be lost on many people these days.
That’s the fine balance that Julen Lopetegui needs to find at West Ham. He needs to implement a properly exciting style of play, but achieve some kind of success at the same time.
Whether he’s capable of doing that remains to be seen.
For now though, I think we can all agree that the football we’ve seen already under Lopetegui has been promising.
Max Kilman is clearly a big fan of the Hammers head coach, and his comments highlighted just how much we needed to evolve after David Moyes left.
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