Julen Lopetegui fires West Ham warning after pre-season defeat to Wolves

Julen Lopetegui made no excuses for West Ham’s 3-1 defeat to former club Wolves in a pre-season friendly on Saturday.

Kick-off at the EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida was delayed for two hours by a storm to have twice flooded the pitch, while players and supporters looked for cover during spells of thunder and lightning.

Matheus Cunha eventually opened the scoring for the Molineux club before Mohammed Kudus levelled, though a second-half brace from Rodrigo Gomes condemned the Hammers to a defeat.

Lopetegui, who has so far drawn with Hungarian champions Ferencvaros and beaten Dagenham & Redbridge during his brief spell in charge, warned his team that things must improve before the start of the Premier League season.

“There were not a lot of good moments,” he said.

“We have to do a lot better and a lot of much better things to win the matches, so that’s why I told the players the demands will be higher and we have to try to translate this in the next three weeks.

“We have to analyse this match with calmness, but always knowing that sometimes this is not a bad thing that this happens in the pre-season, because I want us to know more about our needs, and for us to know we have to align and work together for the first match in the Premier League that is more or less in three weeks.”

West Ham play Crystal Palace in Tampa on Sunday before hosting Celta Vigo on Saturday August 10.

They begin their League campaign at home to Aston Villa a week later.