There is huge responsibility that comes with being the captain of a big club like West Ham but time and again it seems lost on Kurt Zouma.
West Ham took another hammering as they lost 5-2 at Crystal Palace on Sunday.
It meant the Hammers extended their run without a clean sheet to 14 Premier League games – the longest since 2020.
In truth the humbling could and probably should have been far worse.
Had Palace scored eight or nine West Ham couldn’t have had any complaints.
Perhaps the worst of the lot was watching Eberechi Eze nonchalantly pop the ball through Kurt Zouma’s legs to Jean-Philippe Mateta, who had an age to pause and pick his spot inside the box before firing home Palace’s fifth.
Radio silence from Zouma again after mauling
After the game David Moyes blasted his players and offered a rare apology to West Ham fans.
And James Ward-Prowse also fronted up to offer his own assessment and apology, calling for more unity.
Notice anything familiar about that last sentence?
Well furious West Ham fans certainly have and they’re all saying the same thing about Zouma.
Hammers supporters have taken to social media to voice their anger that captain Zouma has once again failed to address the fans after an unacceptable performance.
Instead that duty always seems to fall on someone else’s shoulders be it Vladimir Coufal, Ward-Prowse or another lamb to the slaughter.
Let’s be blunt about this, Zouma was always a questionable choice as West Ham captain following Declan Rice’s departure.
Because there have been question marks as to whether he is fit to skipper the club of Bobby Moore.
Furious fans are all saying the same thing about Zouma
Both literally – given the knee issues which restrict how often he can play for the Hammers – and from a moral standpoint given cat-gate which dragged West Ham’s name through the mud.
The latter is in the past. The player apologised for his actions and Moyes’ decision to make him captain was seen as the bestowing of some much-needed responsibility on the £30m defender.
Hammers fans – like the club – have rallied around Zouma since then, backing their man in the face of abuse from rival fans.
When fit and in form, Zouma is comfortably West Ham’s best defender. But his woeful on the pitch performances aside of late, Zouma has offered next to nothing off it in terms of dialogue with fans.
He rarely addresses supporters, does interviews or – most importantly – fronts up when the going gets tough.
That was left to Coufal after the club’s record home league defeat to Arsenal and Alphonse Areola after defeat to Forest a week after.
‘Why is the captain not answering these questions?’
So fans, Hammers News and others such as The Athletic have – justifiably – questioned Zouma’s captaincy.
Zouma bit back at the criticism in an interview on the club’s official website recently. It was good to see some sort of reaction from the former France international.
But here we are again after another woeful defeat and he has failed to take responsibility by addressing supporters.
And it has not gone unnoticed among the Hammers faithful, who were in agreement when the club posted out Ward-Prowse’s apologetic interview on X.