Manchester United v West Ham United
and as part of anti-bullying week. “It’s been very difficult,” he says. “Last season we had a great season. Now we have started badly, and no player has left and more came. I think we’ve started badly but we are progressing a lot. We’ve got good players, a good group, and I think we are going to move ahead.”
The players have talked; to discuss what has gone wrong and clear the air. “Yes, obviously,” Lanzini says. “We couldn’t understand what was going on. We always meet because it’s a good group, there is a lot of trust between us. I just hope we can move on.”
It is all the more frustrating for Lanzini having earned a permanent £9.4 million move, on a four-year deal, to West Ham after an impressive season on loan from the United Arab Emirates club Al Jazira, who he joined from River.
Moving to the UAE was a surprise for a player who was offered to Manchester United – whose then manager, David Moyes, declined the deal because he had Shinji Kagawa – and who Tottenham Hotspur pursued before signing Christian Eriksen.
But Lanzini said it was the right move for him, even if it was also a “gamble”.
“We were champions with River Plate and I felt it was time to go – either to Europe or somewhere else,” he says, counting Erik Lamela, Roberto Pereyra and Ramiro Funes Mori among his former club teammates in Argentina. All are now in the Premier League.
“In that moment the best option was the Emirates. I don’t regret anything. It was easy for me to then move to West Ham.”
It helped that West Ham manager Slaven Bilic had tried to sign Lanzini before he went to the UAE, when Bilic was coach of Turkish side Besiktas, and “La Joya”, the jewel, as he was nicknamed in Argentina, has shone. “My objective at the time was to stay at West Ham,” Lanzini says of securing a permanent move. “That is what I wanted and needed.”
West Ham’s struggles have also been due to injury. During the summer Lanzini damaged a knee, which ruled him out of Argentina’s Olympic squad, and he explains: “I missed pre-season with that injury. I think a pre-season for a player is what keeps you going for the whole season. Now I am working to get back to 100 per cent and I think I am very close to achieving that.”
Similarly Dimitri Payet. West Ham’s player of the year, their jewel, who made it on to the Ballon d’Or longlist, has not yet touched the heights of last season after his exertions at Euro 2016, but Lanzini has no doubt about his team-mate or that the team will climb the table.
“I think, yes,” he says. “Because of the quality of players we have. We have one of the best players in the Premier League. Dimitri. We have a good group. We just need to work harder and focus harder on what we need to do.”
Lanzini is a big Payet fan. “It is incredible because you know he is going to do something fantastic,” he says of the France international. “He creates chances, he leaves free space for you, he strikes the ball very well.”
Away from the pressures of football, life in London has suited him. “I have done all the tourist things. My favourite was the Madame Tussauds waxwork museum. Very nice. It is very funny. I had my picture taken with everyone, the actors and actresses, all of them. Particularly, the Beatles. My dad used to listen to them. He loves English music. When he comes to visit he loves to go to Covent Garden to hear all the live music. My dad always makes me listen to that rock music.”
Does he know that Bilic plays the guitar and was in a band? “I know, but he hasn’t played for us yet,” Lanzini says. “Maybe when we win a trophy.”