West Ham United have a thing for mavericks. From Paolo di Canio to Dimitri Payet, Carlos Tevez and Mohammed Kudus, East London has been home to many a mercurial talent in the Premier League era.
Harry Redknapp took a ‘gamble’ on Paolo di Canio and hit the jackpot.
Carlos Tevez saved Alan Curbishley’s Hammers from relegation. And Payet gave the fans some of their best memories in recent times before forcing through a departure which tainted his legacy.
Talk about ruining your reputation, Mohammed Kudus did something very similar when he became the first West Ham United player to trade in the claret and blue for the white of Tottenham Hotspur since Scott Parker in 2011.
Though if there is anything to be gleaned from the Ghanaian’s excellent start to life in North London – Thomas Frank labelled Kudus a ‘top-class’ operator just days after he completed that £54.5 million transfer – it is that the Hammers were unlikely ever to really see the best of him on a consistent basis.
Kudus has been a revelation on the right-hand side of Spurs’ attack. But with Jarrod Bowen firmly established as West Ham’s go-to right-winger, even Pep Guardiola may have struggled to get both players performing at the peak of their powers on the same team sheet.
Jason McAteer, the former Liverpool, Sunderland, Blackburn and Bolton midfielder, has been taken aback by Kudus’ ‘phenomenal’ numbers in a Spurs shirt meanwhile.
Jason McAteer is surprised West Ham United managed to land Mohammed Kudus
No player in Europe’s top five leagues has completed more dribbles so far this season than Kudus with 30. He leads Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappe and Barcelona talisman Lamine Yamal.
In contrast, Bowen and Crysencio Summerville sit joint-top of West Ham’s own charts, with eight apiece.
McAteer also wonders why a more deep-pocketed Premier League outfit did not cut out the proverbial middle man and sign Kudus directly from Ajax back in 2023. The summer in which he completed that £38 million move to the Hammers.
“His numbers are phenomenal,” McAteer says. “I’m surprised actually that he didn’t go somewhere else other than West Ham.
“He just didn’t settle at West Ham did he? I thought maybe Tottenham would’ve gone for him before West Ham, but that didn’t happen.”
It would maybe be wide of the mark to suggest that Kudus simply ‘didn’t settle’ in a West Ham shirt. People seem to forget that, during his debut season in the Premier League, he scored nine goals and set up eight more under David Moyes.
It was only when Julen Lopetegui arrived that things turned sour, a fallout between manager and player partly explaining why his numbers, and his performances, dipped so alarmingly.
Thomas Frank knows where Kudus must improve at Tottenham
The aforementioned Thomas Frank admitted that Kudus’ time at West Ham ended poorly. That did not stop him from welcoming the two-time Eredivisie winner with open arms. He wants to help Kudus improve his end-product.
And, with five, he already has more assists this season than he did in the whole of 2024/25.
“Of course, I followed him from a distance. [Kudus] impressed me the first season at West Ham and a little less last season,” the former Brentford boss said.
“Looking from distance, they maybe didn’t have their best season for various reasons. I don’t want to go into detail, it’s very difficult to judge from the outside, [but] that maybe doesn’t help. From a player perspective, I can only really speak about the players I am coaching right now.
“I think he’s been quite consistent, so hopefully he can keep that going forward. That is definitely [our aim].
“Definitely, all the front three or four players need to provide goals and score goals. Wingers and strikers need to have quite a significant number of goals, or as many as possible. So of course that is a target for Mo as well.
“I know he’s very eager to get better numbers on the board.”
