West Ham United confirm Julen Lopetegui appointment

Earlier this month, reports began to emerge that the Spaniard was interested in becoming the successor to David Moyes, whose contract was due to expire at the end of the season.

The Hammers subsequently confirmed that they have mutually decided to go their separate ways with the Scot, largely due to their poor form since the turn of the year.

That effectively left Lopetegui waiting in the wings to be confirmed as his replacement, the 57-year-old motivated to take on another role in the Premier League after his short stint with Wolverhampton Wanderers.

On Thursday morning, West Ham officially announced that Lopetegui had arrived at the London Stadium, with his contract beginning on July 1.

Speaking to the club's official website, Lopetegui said: «I feel very happy, first of all, to be able to be part of the future of this big club. 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 we our commitment is 100% 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