West Ham United manager David Moyes expressed satisfaction with Mohammed Kudus’ commitment following a 2-1 Premier League win at Burnley.
Following a challenging day for the Ghana star, who returned late from international duty in Africa, Moyes acknowledged the midfielder’s efforts to contribute despite limited training.
The Irons looked on course to lose at Turf Moor after a penalty conceded by Kudus and converted by Jay Rodriguez put the Clarets ahead early in the second half, but West Ham simply refused to accept they would be beaten.
And so it proved as the Premier League’s bottom club conceded twice in the final five minutes and added-time and West Ham were somehow celebrating their third away top-flight win of the season.
Kudus created both goals, firing in a cross that Dara O’Shea put through his own net under pressure from substitute Divin Mubama, then lofting an inch-perfect centre to the far post for Tomáš Souček to lash past James Trafford on the volley.
Kudus was voted man of the match.
“I’m glad I’m hearing Mo wanted to put things right because that’s the attitude I want to hear from all my players.
He had a really hard day because he’s been away on international duty all over Africa [to Ghana and the island of Comoros in the Indian Ocean] for games and he came back really late and had very little training” Moyes told the club’s website.
“In the last ten minutes he lit it up for us, he started to do better. He was quiet for long periods in the day today, but we were generally quiet and we didn’t play as well as we could have done, especially in the first half. In the second half we played and looked more threatening than we did in the first half” he concluded.