Julen Lopetegui has reportedly started thinking about his captain at West Ham and there is one clear winner.
Among other things, one of the biggest issues at West Ham this season has been a lack of leadership. Losing Mark Noble and Declan Rice in consecutive seasons meant that David Moyes had a difficult decision to make in who to appoint as captain.
Ultimately, he landed on Kurt Zouma. The centre-back is a popular figure in the dressing room and speaks both French and English fluently. While he is a player that understands what it means to play for West Ham, he is evidently not a natural leader, especially on the pitch. Additionally, he is extremely injury prone meaning he isn’t playing as much as you’d like a captain to.
This leaves Julen Lopetegui in quite the predicament. Does he risk upsetting Zouma in order to assign a more fitting captain? Seemingly, the answer is yes, yes he does. According to The Athletic, he is already considering who the next captain of the Hammers will be, and one name stands out to him.
James Ward-Prowse has plenty of experience as a captain from his time at Southampton. Despite only being at the London Stadium for one year, he is a vocal voice who has done a lot of what Zouma hasn’t. For example, almost every time his side have suffered a heavy defeat this season he has been the first one to do an interview.
Obviously this big question is how much Lopetegui plans on using the Englishman. If he is to be a big part of his plans, then there can be very few arguments against Ward-Prowse taking the armband.
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