Mohammed Kudus will have plenty of eyes on him this evening following mounting speculation that he could leave West Ham this summer.
The wider media have finally caught onto the fact that the Ghanaian has a buyout clause in his contract, and as a result, transfer talk is now at fever pitch.
West Ham boss Graham Potter has alluded to Kudus struggling for form, even noting in yesterday’s press conference that the winger is “disappointed.” Given his recent dip in performance—and the suggestion of an £84 million offer from the Saudi Pro League on the table—Kudus needs to finish the season strongly.
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Tonight, the Hammers travel to Wolves, and I suspect a big name may be dropped to accommodate the return to full fitness of Evan Ferguson and the availability of Niclas Fullkrug.
Potter’s side has struggled badly for goals in his first ten games, and he’s running out of reasons not to start a centre fprward. But I’m not convinced he’ll field Jarrod Bowen, Lucas Paquetá, Kudus AND a striker.
Hopefully I’m wrong. But based on what we’ve seen so far, Potter hasn’t shown much willingness to play four forward-thinking players at once—so it seems likely that either Kudus or Paquetá will miss out.
That would be a shame, because West Ham and Potter have a real opportunity to get Kudus firing again by playing him in a system that includes a proper striker and has Paquetá pulling the strings behind.
Whether he’s staying or going, we need the Starboy to finish the season on a high.
Tonight, we’re up against the fourth-worst team in the Premier League. We might not have set the world alight this season, but we’ve still got top attacking talent at our disposal.
We just need to use it.