West Ham hires Lopetegui as manager
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LONDON (AP) — West Ham named former Real Madrid and Spain coach Julen Lopetegui as its new manager on Thursday to replace the departing David Moyes.
Lopetegui is returning to management for the first time since he left Wolverhampton three days before the 2023-24 season began after nine months in that job.
“I feel that we have a fantastic platform," Lopetegui said in a club statement. "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."
Moyes leaves at the end of his contract after four and a half years with West Ham, where he won the Europa Conference League last year. West Ham struggled for form in the second half of this season, winning only four Premier League games since January and finishing ninth.
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