Julen Lopetegui has spoken loud and clear to his banned Ghanaian ‘star boy’ following last week’s red card against Tottenham. This comes on top of pre-existing tensions between the two after they apparently squared up to each other when Lopetegui substituted Kudus at half time in the game against Brentford.
Kudus’ form has been the subject of considerable criticism leading up to the loss of temper and sending-off last weekend, especially on the international scene as the Ghana team which he captains have been ‘all but’ eliminated from the AFCON in 2025/6.
His head coach has spoken to the media today and as reported in the standard.co.uk, ‘has warned Kudus’ about his future behaviour: “Lopetegui confirmed he had held talks with his player and warned such an incident cannot be repeated.
“Unfortunately Kudus is going to be out for three matches because his behaviour was not good and he knows that,” he [Lopetegui] said on Friday.
“He knows he has to improve because this can’t happen. I hope it’s the last time this happens. I’m sure it is not going to happen [again].
“I talked with him and sometimes you don’t have to talk a lot about this kind of situation because he knows it was a mistake. I say, for sure, that he will learn about this incident and his behaviour will handle this better in the future.”
Whether the under-fire head coach can carry sufficient gravitas to influence his undoubtedly talented but very frustrated protegé, we will be none the wiser until Kudus’ minimum 3 game ban is completed and he takes to the pitch for West Ham once again.
With reports abounding even today of bids coming in January for the Ghanaian, it will be critical for JLo to have his confidence restored in his winger. If Kudus’ can’t suck it up and get his head down, the temptation to grab a reported £85 million – plus from Saudia Arabia in January could be just too tempting.
Having excelled in a West Ham shirt for over a year and at 24 years old, Kudus is nobodies protege, and least of all Lopetegui’s. I hope this was an amicable conversation between the two, because if not it will go down as another classic piece of man management by Lopetegui, to publicly reprimand Kudus after everything else. Once again Martin, you appear to take the side of a coach that has done nothing for West Ham so far, against someone who is one of the best players West Ham have had in a long time. I just don’t get why you would prefer £85m to Kudus, perhaps you should be on the board.
imo opinion Kudus is still in a kind of ‘protege’ position. he may be 24 but he is clearly nowhere near the finished article. he certainly has over-the-top talent, he’s quick and strong, he scores goals. he reminds me a bit of Adama Traore – too selfish sometimes, naive (not a natural football brain), explosive but end product often frustrating, often poor tracking or poor defensive positioning. Kudus scores goals but Traore doesn’t lose his nut. whoever gets Kudus at the moment has plenty of sculpting to do
It’s odd that you should use the term can’t get his head down Martin. His issue at the moment is that he’s being doubled and trebled up on and his answer to it is to keep his head down and try to play through it. He needs to draw the two or three in and pass is the answer all round. Immediately if players are on him then they’re not on somebody else, and longer term if he draws players in then passes teams will be less keen to double and treble up on him in future. For the moment though doubling and trebling up is working.