West Ham are rarely, if ever, stable, and Mohammed Kudus’s form could be a microcosm of the club itself.
During the summer, when the Hammers were declared by the fickle folk at Sky Sports to have ‘won the transfer window,’ West Ham’s real fans were simply relieved that we’d kept hold of our prize winger.
The club had managed to navigate the tricky situation of Kudus’s £85m buyout clause, with many agreeing he was worth much more than that.
Fast forward to now, and most would bite anyone’s hand off for anything close to that buyout sum. Such has been the Ghanaian’s drop in effectiveness that many are calling for him to be dropped, hoping Crysencio Summerville can hurry back to take the Starboy’s place in the team.
Of course, there is mitigation for a player who struggled under Julen Lopetegui, but concerningly, he hasn’t shown much improvement since Graham Potter arrived.
Kudus is still regarded as the club’s most saleable asset, and had Bowen, Antonio, and Füllkrug not succumbed to injury just before the transfer window, the former Ajax man would have been offloaded.
West Ham could really do with Kudus hitting form—not just to help the club climb the table and avoid what is looking like a scrap to be the best of the worst—but also to stop his value plummeting like a stone. Unless his form improves or a bidding war emerges, the Hammers won’t see much more than what they paid Ajax.
I’m hoping we keep him and under Potter he starts to find his best form.
Not bothered what his transfer value is. We know how good he can be, let’s get him back to that.
Did he not play for ” total football” Ajax?
Did you see Kudus’ stats in his awful performance against Brentford? He had 60 touches but failed to contribute any goal, assist or key pass. He attempted 6 crosses but couldn’t complete any of them. He also lost the ball a shocking 16 times and failed to win any of his aerial duels. That dreadful miss from 6 yards when he skied it over the bar just summed up his game.
Transfer Market show his value has fallen to €50 million ( £41.5 million). Can’t see anyone activating his buy out clause of £85 million unless his performance improves dramatically. Personally I would bench him.
Yes all true and you just know if he goes for a relatively low fee to a big club that can afford any risk of failing he will turn it on again.
He is not alone.Too many players way off form topped with an alarmingly ,slow,predictable midfield is costing us dear.Huge rebuild needed come the Summer after a disastrous Summer transfer blunder last year.
Kudus suited Moyes low block counter attack football but in a possession based team I’m not sure he works so well. It would help if he could pass the ball but he just wants to hold onto it and run with the ball which is great when he does it in the right places on the pitch at the right times but I feel a lot of teams have sussed him out. I see teams jump on him now as soon as he gets the ball because they know what he’s going to do and they cut it out at its source.
You read my mind LJ. I was thinking the same thing. He is still a valuable player if his game can be tweaked a little.