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.
“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.
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.”
