Struggles all over the pitch this season.
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00:00It leads on nicely to our next topic in terms of individuals and obviously that lack of
00:06goals and injuries has played a key part in that. Goals per match are only 1.2, 14th in
00:12the Premier League in terms of that sort of chart. Mohamed Koudes as well has certainly
00:17slowed down his return this season. Obviously, Jared Bowen had that long-term injury as well
00:23now coming back. But the goals situation has been a real struggle for West Ham this season
00:29and Koudes has certainly dropped in terms of his form. Obviously, last season he was
00:33fantastic both in the Premier League and in the Europa League as well.
00:38Yes, there's been a number of head-scratching moments for West Ham this season and one of
00:43the main ones is Koudes' form. Last year he was incredible. He really hit the ground running
00:48in the Premier League and in Europe for us in the Europa League. It really felt like
00:53we got a bit of a bargain at £35 million. This season it just hasn't really worked
00:59for him. I've got a bit of a theory around it and I think partly it's a confidence thing.
01:06With a player like him who relies on his quality and his skill and his pace, when he's not
01:13getting into those positions and when the team in particular is playing poorly like
01:16we were earlier on in the season, he gets less chances. He is a bit of a confidence
01:21player in that respect. So I think partly it's down to confidence but it's also down
01:26to the rest of the Premier League has found him out a little bit. He's getting less time
01:32on the ball than we've noticed. He likes to get the ball and just run. He's very direct,
01:36he's very paced, he's very tricky. Now we're seeing most teams we come up against, the
01:41moment he gets the ball they've got two players on him, three players on him and he hasn't
01:45really got the time or the space to really get the best out of what we know he can do.
01:52I think that's probably been one of the key reasons why we've not seen the best of Mohamed
01:56Kudus this season. You've got that and then when he does get himself into position he's
02:02missing chances that he would have buried last year. One against Brentford at the weekend
02:06being a key one. He would have buried that last year and this season it goes over the
02:11bar. It's a problem but the way I see it is that the best players in the world find
02:17ways around that. The best players in the world are marked. I have two or three players
02:23marking them every single game if he wants to fulfil that potential. Everyone knows that
02:30he has that potential to be one of the best players in the world in his position. There's
02:34a reason why he's been linked with the likes of Manchester City and Arsenal over the last
02:4012 months. He needs to work out a way of adapting his game to deal with that additional attention
02:48from the opposition. I think that's probably another job that Graham Potter has got as
02:52well. How can he utilise Kudus' skills and his talent but without having the additional
03:02problems that he's got? There is such a great player there but at the moment there are these
03:07rumours that he's got an £85m release clause and he could leave in the summer.
03:14The form he's in at the moment, no one's going to pay that £85m release clause.
03:18That might seem like a really good thing for West Ham but if he's not playing to his full
03:21potential, not in form, then it's kind of a catch-22 for West Ham. We've got a player here
03:26that could be worth £85m plus and we could sell him for that and make a nice tidy profit on him
03:34but at the moment he's not worth that and no one's going to pay it. It's a bit of a catch-22 but
03:40he needs a couple of good games where he's playing in a position that he likes. He likes
03:45playing number 10 and if he can play in that position or at least get a bit more time on the
03:50ball, maybe score a couple of goals. We see it a lot. Players out of confidence, they get a goal
03:55in that goes in off their knee or a little goal that goes in for massive deflection and suddenly
04:00they're back in the game and they're confident again. Maybe that's what Kudus needs but
04:04I think a lot of it is down to the fact that he's been found out a little bit this year.
04:09And just looking at West Ham as a whole over the season, obviously not long to go in this
04:14campaign. It just seems if you compare them now individually, it just doesn't seem like
04:19the best has been gotten out of a lot of these players. What does that put that down to? Obviously,
04:24the changing manager could have had a big impact on that but bar Jared Bowen maybe and maybe Wan
04:30Basaka for example. There hasn't been many individual standouts that have really
04:36pressed on from an impressive couple of years competing in Europe.
04:41Yeah, I think for a lot of the players that were already here at the club that didn't arrive in
04:45the summer, I think a lot of it kind of spilled over from the back end of last year. A lot of
04:50people forget that while we did a lot of great things under David Moyes, the second half of last
04:55season was really poor. I think we won four games after Christmas between then and the end of the
05:00season and that's why we finished ninth and not in the top six. So I think there's a bit of a
05:05spill over there. What didn't help was Stoppategi coming in and the players clearly not really
05:10getting on board with his ideas and his tactics and that was evident in the results that we were
05:15getting earlier in the season. We have seen an improvement since Potter arrived but it's still
05:20been quite sporadic and there are a number of reasons behind that player's being played out
05:24position due to injuries etc. So there's a lot of talent in that squad that really isn't
05:30fulfilling its potential at the moment and the hope now is that with Graham Potter on board
05:35and now we're only playing one game a week at the moment, it's giving him a lot more time
05:40to really work out how to get the best out of these players again, how to get the best out of
05:43Kudas Piquet when he's fit. Bowen is Bowen every week, we always get the best out of him but
05:49other players like Somerville when he's back, Evan Ferguson now he's at the
05:54club. How can we get a really good midfield going with James Ward-Prowse potentially involved?
05:59So there's a lot of talent there and there's a lot of potential. I think it's been a mixture
06:04of confidence and a mixture of playing in a system that just didn't really suit their
06:08style under Loppetegui and a bit of a hangover from a really disappointing second half of last
06:13season. But hopefully Graham Potter can start really working the players on the training
06:18ground each week and start getting the best back out of them.