David Moyes has urged his West Ham understudies to step up and fill the void as star man Mohammed Kudus heads to the Africa Cup of Nations.
Kudus has been a revelation since his summer arrival from Ajax, scoring nine times across all competitions to help fire the Hammers into the Premier League’s top-six and through to the last-16 of the Europa League.
However, the 23-year-old is now due to link up with Ghana ahead of AFCON and is not expected to feature in Tuesday night’s meeting with Brighton, with Lucas Paqueta also a major doubt because of an injury picked up in last week’s win over Arsenal.
Depending on Ghana’s progress, Kudus could miss as many six West Ham matches during his time away and Moyes believes his side’s chances of sustaining a push for the European places will depend heavily on how they cope with the forward’s absence.
“I think we are still up against it with the level of competition but we’re never going to say we’re not going for it,” Moyes said. “I think the next month with the boys going away to the African Nations, just the whole programme. How can we cope without Kudus who has been sensational? How is Paqueta’s injury?
“We have to make sure we’ve not lost a big part of it because the truth is we’ve hardly had any injuries all season and we’ve not had to make too many changes and it’ll be now for others to step up and show what they can do.”
Kudus’s signing was part of a shrewd summer of recruitment from the Hammers, who sold club captain Declan Rice to Arsenal in a £105million move.
That money was reinvested to bolster Moyes’s squad, with James Ward-Prowse and Edson Alvarez also excelling in the first half of their debut campaigns.
“I think managers will lose their job by the recruitment,” Moyes added. “Recruitment is a crucial thing as a manager if you get it right, and I think our recruitment has been really good.
“Let me tell you, we worked really hard to get the players in. We’ve done a great job with Edson, James, have all all done a brilliant job. Even Dinos [Mavropanos] who has done well in European games while he is still finding his feet with us.”
