After finding a suitable pub in Sunderland to while away an hour or so on the opening day of the season, a group of West Ham fans marked their temporary territory with a new banner.
Hung outside the premises was an image of Mohammed Kudus’s face superimposed onto a snake’s body with the “K” in his surname replaced with a “J”: JUDUS [sic].
The 25-year-old’s move to Tottenham Hotspur from West Ham in July has unsurprisingly stirred up ill feeling in the East End among a fanbase predisposed to resent their city rivals.
Kudus, perhaps unwisely, fanned the flames further upon sealing his £55m transfer. “I only wanted Spurs,” he said in his announcement video. “You’ll find Spurs there,” he quipped in another as a Spurs doctor moved a stethoscope to his heart during a medical exam.
Also on Kudus’s Instagram grid, there’s a picture of him celebrating a goal in claret and blue with a caption thanking West Ham. A damage limitation exercise doomed from the outset. Plastic snakes and a tidal wave of booing awaits the Ghanaian.
He only wanted Spurs.
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) July 10, 2025
Welcome to North London, Mohammed Kudus.
@stonebwoy
pic.twitter.com/zllwRvuZeL
Losing Kudus was a blow to West Ham in sporting terms, given his ability and potential.
It was a PR misstep, too. West Ham fans are not happy with their owners, to put it mildly, and Kudus’ sale to their biggest Premier League rivals is one of numerous reasons why.
Autumn has only just begun, but Kudus can expect an extremely frosty reception when he returns to the London Stadium on Saturday. Football fans don’t tend to forgive and forget too easily, as Jermain Defoe knows all too well.
Defoe made a similarly acrimonious transfer from West Ham to Spurs in 2004 and the mere mention of Kudus’ impending return elicits a puff of the cheeks from the former England striker.
“He’s lucky it’s not at Upton Park!” Defoe tells The i Paper. “The fans were so close to the pitch. The atmosphere was difficult for teams to come and play there; it’s just completely different now.”
“They called [the East Stand] the ‘Chicken Run’. That side was mental,” adds Bobby Zamora, who also represented both clubs.
“They were literally right at the front. The fans were on you… but you’re a lot further away at the London Stadium.”
“I’m not gonna sing the songs! I knew [it was coming], but I liked it. That was the strange thing,” Defoe says of his first game back at the Boleyn.
“You know you’re going to get stick, but I’d rather that than having them cheering me because then you find a little bit more [motivation].
“As an attacking player, there’s only one way to keep them quiet and when you score, it’s just the best feeling ever.”
Kudus endured a difficult second and final campaign with West Ham, but has made a strong early impression with his new club.
The winger followed up a promising debut against Paris Saint-Germain in the Uefa Super Cup with two assists against Burnley on his home debut and another lively showing in a 2-0 win over Manchester City.
“He’s gone from West Ham to Tottenham and the West Ham fans aren’t happy because he’s a top player,” Defoe says.
“He’s a match-winner and I still think he can go to the next level as well. I feel like he can do more.”
Kudus is an integral part of an exciting, new-look Spurs attack under Thomas Frank. Netherlands playmaker Xavi Simons, a £51.8m buy from RB Leipzig, and the France striker Randal Kolo Muani, on loan from PSG, are in contention to make their debuts this weekend.
Frank will be hoping for a positive reaction from his side after they were beaten – and comprehensively outplayed – by Bournemouth in their previous fixture.
Pressure is on his opposing manager Graham Potter, meanwhile, after a difficult start to his West Ham tenure. A surprise 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest last time out has brought Potter a reprieve.
It’s a derby that tends to deliver excitement and goals in spades, and Saturday’s clash should see much of the same, especially with the added Kudus/Judus factor.
Defoe and Zamora played in arguably the most iconic Premier League contest between the clubs in 2007, when Spurs recovered from 2-0 and 3-2 down to win 4-3 at Upton Park, with Paul Stalteri an unlikely match-winner.
“I had the shot [Stalteri tapped in the rebound]. I was gutted it wasn’t the other way around!” Defoe recalls. “That was an amazing game, those are the sorts of derbies you want to play in.”
Tottenham topped the news agenda during the international break following the shock departure of Daniel Levy after 24 years as chairman.
“I didn’t see it coming,” Defoe admits. “One trophy in 17 years, obviously the fans are not going to be happy with that, but in terms of the business side and infrastructure, Daniel deserves a lot of credit.”
Levy’s negotiation tactics were infamous. Defoe and Zamora witnessed them firsthand when they switched clubs on deadline day in January 2004. Defoe joined Spurs for £7m from West Ham, with Zamora moving in the opposite direction.
Your next read
“It was a nightmare,” Zamora says. “One of Daniel’s deals,” Defoe adds with a smirk.
“I remember when I signed that day, I was in one of those [Mercedes-Benz] Viano’s and it was so last-minute that I had to get changed and put a suit on in the car and then quickly go to White Hart Lane!”
The Levy era at Spurs is over. Saturday’s game will be the club’s first since he stepped aside on 4 September.
Supporters will hope the next epoch, with Frank at the helm and young players like Kudus leading a new generation of players, brings more silverware than the last. Before that, there’s the small matter of a London derby to navigate.
Jermain Defoe and Bobby Zamora unveiled the new ‘Red Boot’ to be awarded to the top scorer across all three tiers of the EFL during the 2025-2026 season. Sky Bet and the BHF launch the second year of their ‘Every Minute Matters’ campaign to create 500,000 CPR lifesavers – and raise vital funds for the charity. To learn CPR is just 15 minutes please visit the BHF RevivR tool
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/2TyIOVz
Post a Comment