Two journalists have responded over whether West Ham should be excited about Julen Lopetegui’s links to super agent Jorge Mendes.
West Ham’s incoming new boss Julen Lopetegui faces an extremely busy start to life at the club.
Alongside Tim Steidten, the Spaniard must recruit at least eight-10 new players this summer.
The Hammers only have 22 senior players in their squad. Six more are set to depart on free transfers at the end of the season.
That leaves just 16 players with the futures of the likes of Lucas Paqueta also uncertain.
Steidten has proved, with his work at Bayer Leverkusen and since joining West Ham, that he can get top deals done.
But it always helps to have the influence of a super agent too.
Excitement at Lopetegui and Mendes link
So one thing that has excited many West Ham fans about the appointment of Lopetegui has been his links to a certain Jorge Mendes.
Portuguese super agent Mendes runs his agency Gestifute and had serious influence at Wolves in terms of player and manager recruitment.
Excitement at West Ham is understandable given Lopetegui’s links to Mendes in the past and the astonishing array of world class talent in Gestifute’s stable.
Mendes was recently named Best Agent at the Global Soccer Awards, as you can see in the video below.
Steidten and Mendes linking up to do deals is quite a mouthwatering prospect for the Hammers.
It is a link that was the topic of discussion between The Athletic’s Tim Spiers and David Ornstein last night.
The two journalists have responded over new West Ham links to super agent Mendes.
Journalists respond over West Ham links to super agent Mendes
While they did not rule out Mendes having an influence, Spiers and Ornstein explained on The Athletic FC that relations between the super agent and Lopetegui are not what they once were.
“I think because he’d worked in Portugal before (at Porto) and is Iberian himself and worked for Wolves, Jorge Mendes may have been involved in the deal that brought him to Molineux,” Ornstein said.
“But contrary to some suggestions, I don’t think they’re inextricably linked and Mendes, to my knowledge, wasn’t involved in this deal.
“So anybody listening thinking ‘Oh they’re just going to sign a load of Gestifute players’ – I don’t think that’s the case.”
Spiers then interjected regarding the links between Mendes and Lopetegui.
How Lopetegui and Mendes relations became ‘fractured’
“Just to say on that when he came in to Wolves it was expected to be more of the same, Wolves had hired Gestifute managers up until that point with Nuno (Espirito Santo) and Bruno Lage and it was seen of more of the same (with Lopetgui),” Spiers said.
“And Lopetegui’s son was given a role within the club which only added to that. But then that January window, the one that ultimately helped Wolves survive, we did see a bit of a turning of the tide in how Wolves are run in terms of Matt Hobbs and how influential he was going to be in terms of recruitment.
“Wolves did slightly move away from the Mendes model that January, they’d always leaned on Mendes players before that but now there’s a slight move away.
“I think that’s where Lopetegui and Mendes have sort of become a little bit more fractured than they would’ve been. So I wouldn’t expect now that he’s manager of West Ham for Jorge Mendes to be heavily involved…
“He wants the remit to bring in the players he wants, he wants a decent amount of money spent.”
Interestingly, though, West Ham fans who follow the transfer rumour mill closely will notice many players in Mendes’ stable have been linked with West Ham recently and in the not-too-distant past.
They include:
- Matheus Nunes
- Goncalo Ramos
- Joao Neves
- Leny Yoro
- Goncalo Guedes
- Gedson Fernandes
- Nelson Semedo
- Adama Traore
- Jota
- Tiago Santos
- Zaidu
