Mohammed Kudus confident the best is yet to come as West Ham star makes mark again

Ghana international up to five goals in 17 games since £38m move from Ajax
More success: Kudus has been impressing in recent weeks
REUTERS
Malik Ouzia @MalikOuzia_4 December 2023

Mohammed Kudus continued his flying start to life in West Ham colours with a man-of-the-match showing in Sunday’s draw with Crystal Palace, then warned: ‘The best is yet to come’.

Kudus signed for the Hammers from Ajax this summer in a deal worth an initial £38million and having been eased into the team early on by David Moyes, has come into his own in recent weeks.

The opener against the Eagles took the Ghanaian’s tally to five goals in 17 appearances for the Irons, while he also created both goals in the late comeback win at Burnley earlier this month. With Moyes’s side about to head into the busy festive period fighting on four fronts, however, Kudus believes he is just getting started.

Just getting started: Kudus is confident he can still improve at West Ham
Getty Images

“I think I still have more to show,” he said. “But credit to all the team, the staff, the player care. Everyone around the club has really helped me to settle in so credit to all the people around me, and myself also for putting in the effort.

“I like to score and make an impact in the game. When the ball was wide, all I could do was just get myself in the box and then it was a beautiful cross from Vlad [Coufal].”

The Hammers looked relatively comfortable leading 1-0 at the break, but a familiar failing resurfaced as they once again conceded at the start of the second-half to allow the visitors a route back into the game.

Another summer signing, defender Konstantinos Mavropanos, was at fault, gifting Odsonne Edouard an opening with a dreadful backpass, but Kudus insisted his side should have put the game to bed sooner.

"It was a very tight game and if it’s just 1-0 we’re only one goal away and anything could happen,” he told Sky Sports. "You could see we were pushing for the second goal and unluckily didn’t get it. We don’t put the blame on one person, it was a collective performance.

“We’ll find ways to improve our game, be more compact and we can still win games with just one goal. We need to defend better.”

The point for Palace was a welcome one, with the Eagles having lost four of their previous five matches and facing a mounting injury crisis after Eberechi Eze and Cheick Doucoure were both sidelined.

Relief: Hodgson's side got a welcome point despite injury worries
REUTERS

Roy Hodgson’s midfield shortage was made worse by the late absence of Jeffrey Schlupp owing to personal reasons, with the Palace boss forced to deploy American defender Chris Richards as a makeshift holding player.

“I thought he did well,” Hodgson said "He found out very late. We’d been preparing all week to play with a certain formation in mind and a certain way of playing and attacking, but it had to be changed at the very last minute when we lost Jeff Schlupp overnight.

“That was a blow for the team to have to come to terms with but the decision was that Chris should go in there. We thought that was going to be the best way of helping us to get a result and he must be very pleased with his performance.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT