Lopetegui asks West Ham fans to reserve judgement until May

West Ham's under-pressure manager Julen Lopetegui has told the club's supporters to reserve their judgement on him until the end of the season.

The former Real Madrid and Spain boss replaced David Moyes in the summer but has overseen a disappointing start to the new campaign despite spending £120m on nine new players.

The Hammers have lost their first three home matches for the first time in their history and were thrashed 5-1 by Liverpool in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday.

"The coach’s job is always like this," said the Spaniard, who was criticised by sections of the home support during their 3-0 defeat by Chelsea last Saturday.

"We have experience about this and we are thinking how to improve the team, to be able to play better and develop our skills to win matches.

"This is our work and this is the high pressure I can feel every day as a coach. I think the Premier League has 38 matches and we'll talk in May."

West Ham, who sit 14th in the Premier League, travel to Brentford on Saturday before hosting Ipswich, in two matches they hope will provide a platform to climb the table.

"It's always important to get a win, always - above all when you lost the last two matches as we did," added Lopetegui.

"For us, that's why it's always important and the Brentford match is going to be like this – important, three points against a very good team.

"We knew that we were going to have a lot of work and a lot of problems. Always one win increases your confidence, increase a lot of good things for you and we work for that."