Julen Lopetegui says West Ham was always the top priority despite having offers from other clubs, after his appointment was officially announced.

While we’ve known about it for quite a while now, Julen Lopetegui has officially been announced as West Ham’s new head coach. Interestingly, the club have officially used that term rather than ‘manager’ confirming that he has a slightly different role to what David Moyes had at the club.

Some suggested that the Hammers had peaked under David Moyes and the slogan ‘be careful what you wish for’ was one the East London faithful grew tired of. However, in his first ever interview for the club, Lopetegui was eager to confirm that he wants to take West Ham to the next level. “I feel very happy, first of all, to be able to be part of the future of this big Club,” he told the official site. “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 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.”

As mentioned, his role as head coach will be different to what we’re used to seeing at West Ham, with Tim Steidten taking a lead on transfers. Obviously it is going to be vital for the two to establish a good relationship and, even though rumours initially suggested otherwise, Steidten is clearly delighted to have the Spaniard as a colleague. “We are very pleased to welcome Julen and his staff to our Club. He was a stand-out candidate to become our Head Coach and I am personally delighted that we have chosen to work together. His career shows that, wherever he has coached, he has improved players and teams, and we are looking forward to seeing him work with our squad.”

“Julen lives and breathes football. He thinks deeply about the game, he is tactically astute and he has shown he can adapt to work in different leagues, in different countries, with national teams, and in each situation he has shown his outstanding qualities. Julen is highly experienced in the way we will now work at West Ham United and I am looking forward to working with him to grow a successful future for the Club.”

The driving force behind the appointment was David Sullivan who did have to convince others that Lopetegui is the right man. He was clearly extremely successful in doing so and says that he is “looking forward” to supporting the new gaffer to carry out his vision.

“I would like to welcome Julen to the Club and wish him every success in his new role. We believe this appointment will ensure a strong opportunity to build on the positive progress made in recent seasons, helping the Club to move forward in the direction that aligns with our ambitions,” he claimed.

“We have been working hard behind the scenes to continue shaping the right strategy for West Ham United’s future, and we are looking forward to bringing Julen’s coaching ability, experience and personality to the Club.”

With so much division in the fanbase for so long, it is pivotal that we unite to get behind Lopetegui, not to mention giving him the time he needs to rebuild the squad and get the players adapted to his system. On behalf of everyone at The West Ham Way, welcome Julen Lopetegui – we can’t wait to see what the future holds.