Like many fans of the club, West Ham United legend Tony Cottee is afraid that the board will make a bad appointment to replace Julen Lopetegui. 

Todays match against Wolves could spell the end for Julen Lopetegui at West Ham, just six months after being appointed. The Spaniard has had an awful start to the season with heavy defeats, arguments with the players and he has also failed to form any sort of connection with the Hammers fans.

The club couldn’t seem to make their minds up on who to replace the former Real Madrid manager with, so they unanimously agreed to give him the Wolves game. If West Ham fail to put up a good performance and get a result this evening, Lopetegui will almost certainly be fired.

There have been a lot of potential names in the frame that could be the next to tale the helm at the London Stadium: Graham Potter, Sergio Conceição, Michael Carrick and Matthias Jaissle have all been heavily linked.

Speaking on BBC’s Sacked In The Morning Podcast Cottee said: “I think the one that stands out at the moment who’s free and not with a club would probably be Graham Potter.

“I think most of the West Ham fans would prefer a British manager. I’m not saying foreign managers aren’t good. I just think for the type of club West Ham is, I think the British manager would probably be good along the lines of David Moyes, etc.

“He’s not at a club at the moment, so I’m sure he should be high on the list. But knowing the West Ham board, they’ll probably appoint someone I’ve absolutely never heard of and I’ll be scratching my head again and going, ‘Oh, here we go’”.

One example of that would be Matthias Jaissle, a 36-year-old German that has never coached in a top 5 league,  and is currently in charge of Saudi side Al-Ahli. However, to disagree with Cottee a move like this would probably be the out there and creative move this West Ham side needs to turn their fortunes around. Graham Potter is known for his attacking and creative style of football, however, he isn’t someone that will get the fans excited straight away unless he hits the ground running.

Someone like Jaissle that has had a lot of success in his young career, but will also be an unknown quantity to the majority of West Ham fans is something that would excite them. The Irons fans will be more likely to immediately get behind the new man who will be full of fresh ideas that no one has seen before in Claret and Blue.