Lopetegui’s exit is the gift that keeps on giving. Press conferences become worth watching again rather than mental endurance challenges. Team tactics become decypherable and perhaps most importantly, the squad is integrated again and on-message. Instead of the ‘want-away’ factions being troublesome and likely to leave, the message coming out of West Ham is of a team working together for the greater good.
None sum this up better than Mohammed Kudus. Back in November he was telling his brother to get him out of the club: He’d just had a very well publicised bust-up with the head coach and was serving a five game suspension after ‘dumb and dumber’ fisticuffs against Tottenham.
Indeed it was looking very much as if West Ham would be dragged into ‘cashing in’ on Kudus in January with Liverpool and Arsenal reported just a couple of months ago to be readying bids of £85 million.
All that talk of a January sale has evaporated since Lopetegui packed his bags and the mood music is altogether different in 2025.
To listen to the Ghanainan now you’d not believe the same person was speaking, as he is reported telling whufc.com:
“I set higher standards for myself. I’m not there yet, but we keep working because individually and as a team, we all know the reality of the situation we are in.
“Right now, the focus is not on whether I score or not, but finding ways to get the team the points, which is part of the game. Most importantly, I’m fit and healthy and available to play a part in helping the team every single game.”
The last part of the equation will be results on the pitch. Now that the Hammers’ quintet of want aways – Alvarez, Kudus, Areola Todibo and Fullkrug – all seem to be committing to the Potter ethos, the prospect for the second half of the season is far more positive than Lopetegui’s short-lived reign. Kudus has no international competition to distract him this year as sadly his Ghana side is out of the winter AFCON 25. It does give him the chance to get his head down and get back to doing what he does best.
Compared with the Lopetegui era left-sided starts which he had to endure, the simple and blindingly obvious tweaks by Potter to start Kudus centrally or in an ‘inside right’ role will surely get him back to his best. Goals cannot be far away. The real trick for Potter will be to hang on to the Ghanaian in the summer. But that’s a whole other story.
Music 2 my ears 2 after just reading what our ”Wonder-Kid-Kudus” had to say about helping the our Hammers get out of the shit lopo left us in. now. lets go ”Balls-Out 2 get the boss the players that he wants and get back in the ”Top-6-Again” it excites me no end when i think about our forward 3 of ”Kudus-Bowen-And-Brobbey-With The Brazilian-At-No-10” C O Y I’s
The man is gone. No need to be a bitch.
I love the idea that having an £85m release clause makes everyone think we could get that much money for him. We’d be lucky to get our money back on the sale the way he’s playing this season.
Potter’s *real* task for the rest of this season should be to get the whiny babies back to playing well so we can actually get something for them in the summer.
Agree with alot of this. I recall when we looking good at the end of 2023, it was paricularly Bowen, Kudus and Paqueta who were performing so well together. Get those last 2 playing again, add in Summerville and there could still be alot to be positive about this season.
The Palace defeat was a tactical fail by Potter , however give the guy the rest of the season before final judgement .. I expect a better performance at Villa given that they played in Europe this week and will be fatigued . The players understand and believe in Potter’s tactics which give Westham a really good chance of victory .
Harsh to call it a failing on Potter’s part. One week into the job and no functioning central forward isn’t a fair starting point from which to judge anyone.
The appointment of Lopetegui was a truly awful decision that led directly to most of the things that have gone wrong this year. Nobody but nobody thought Lopetegui to be the man.
It beggars belief that anyone else is held at fault for anything after that one.
We will never realise our potential while decisions go on like it.
Hopefully we can continue to get better, would be nice if our injuries all clear up, it is going to take a long time to get to where Brighton were, all these clubs Villa, Forest, Bournemouth, Brighton, Newcastle etc have taken years to build to where they are, we may still have to sell Kudus to fund that improvement.
Good that the mood music among the players is good and the atmosphere is better, Alvarez was good when he joined, Fullkrug for all he has been berated actually has a decent scoring record compared to other forwards we have had. We should possibly keep him if we can get him fit and use him sparingly like Potter did with Glen Murray to get goals late in games. Areola if you look at his stats is the worst goalkeeper in the PL for saving points and Fabianski the best.
IMHO we should be looking to sell Areola and get an excellent younger keeper that is great with the ball at their feet and closer to Fabianski in terms of keeping the ball out of the net.
Hi 32,
Don’t get the young keeper great with the ball at his feet bit. We are never going to attempt to play the sort of game that involves the keeper tapping the ball short to defending colleagues. Totally agree with keeping the ball out of the net, though.
Keep up the good work. COYI
It was more thinking of succession with Fab being 40 Taffy, he can’t go on forever and Areola isn’t the answer.
Areola’s positioning was off for the Villa game as an example, was still a brilliant finish by Ramsey having said that but may have been avoided. Of course we will never know how Villa may have played if they needed a goal but that’s another story 😃
One window at a time, eh? There’s a lot of football to be played before summer.
Didn’t look integrated against palace, unless my utter boredom made me miss something, all smoke and mirrors that’s what this club has become.?