Hammers News is happy to say we told you so about a huge Mohammed Kudus West Ham homecoming boost.
Last week we told you here on Hammers News that star boy Mohammed Kudus could be back with West Ham much sooner than anyone thought.
The Hammers are already sorely missing their electric £38m man after he headed off to AFCON with Ghana.
That’s has showed in drab draws with Brighton and Bristol City. Although he would have missed those matches through injury anyway, it gave West Ham a taste of what life could be without Kudus for the next few weeks.
Should Ghana get to the final in Ivory Coast on February 11th, Kudus would not be expected back until after the Forest game on February 17th.
FBL-CAN-2024-GHA-CPV
Photo by FRANCK FIFE/AFP via Getty Images
Love to say we told you so about Mo
That would mean Kudus would miss a total of eight games – and nine should the Hammers win their replay at Bristol.
But while other outlets were showing a distinct lack of knowledge and research by labelling Ghana one of the favourites to go all the way, we told it like it is on Hammers News last week.
MORE WEST HAM STORIES
We stated ‘West Ham could get a huge Kudus boost thanks to hapless Chris Hughton’s bang average Ghana’. And our report highlighted that Ghana are nowhere near even being in the top five favourites.
Nobody likes a know it all.
But we love to say we told you so about a huge Kudus West Ham homecoming boost.
Because true to form, Ghana lost their opening game 2-1 to Cape Verde and now face an uphill battle to qualify for the last 16 – meaning Kudus could be home by the end of the month.
Other sites were reporting that Cape Verde was an ‘easy game’ for Ghana. But we pointed out they only just scraped into AFCON thanks to West Ham’s main man and had shown nothing under Chris Hughton over the last year to suggest that would be the case.
West Ham United v Manchester United – Premier League
Photo by Rob Newell – CameraSport via Getty Images
West Ham’s huge Kudus homecoming boost
West Ham’s attacking star and was not in the squad for the game. And his team fell to a late 2-1 defeat having got the scores level at 1-1 in the second half.
The Black Stars are in the same group as Egypt and Mozambique, who played out a 2-2 draw to show the latter will be no walkover either.
It is not beyond the realms of possibility that Ghana are dumped out at the group stage now.
They face one of the tournament favourites Egypt on Thursday where a likely defeat could all but end their hopes.
The top two teams from each AFCON group qualify for the last 16 along with the four best third-placed sides.
But now bottom side Ghana face an uphill task to reach the last 16 – which takes place between January 27th and 30th.
West Ham United FC v Sport-Club Freiburg:
Former Hammers player Hughton has failed to inspire the Black Stars. And the writing looked on the wall when they were held to a bore draw by Namibia in a warm-up game after which angry fans sent a warning to the manager and his players.
Ghana have also lost to the likes of Madagascar, Comoros and Niger in recent times. Now Cape Verde can be added to the list. They were well beaten 4-0 by USA and have been held by teams such as Angola too. Any time they have faced quality opposition – such as Uruguay and Mexico, they have been easily beaten too.
Even if Kudus’ boys do somehow manage to get out of the group, there is little evidence Hughton’s very average team – West Ham’s man besides – will go any further than that.
So Kudus looks on course to return to West Ham certainly in time for the Man United away game on February 4th, if not Bournemouth at home three days earlier.
In other circumstances we would obviously be rooting for Kudus to do well with his country. But from a selfish perspective, this is nothing but great news for West Ham and the club’s top six hopes.
