West Ham United coach, Julen Lopetegui hopes that Mohammed Kudus will learn from his mistake after being sent off during last weekend’s match against Tottenham Hotspur.
The Ghanaian international was shown a red card just four minutes before the end of the game, despite having scored the opening goal. The Hammers eventually lost the match 4-1.
In a pre-match press conference ahead of West Ham’s game against Manchester United, Lopetegui expressed his disappointment over the incident and urged Kudus to avoid similar actions in the future.
The former Real Madrid and Wolves manager emphasized the need for the 24-year-old to learn from the experience.
“He (Mohammed Kudus) is young, but for sure he’s not happy, and we are not happy. It can happen, but I hope this is the last time we face this kind of situation. He has to learn that the only way to manage frustration is by running more and focusing on the match. It happened, but I’m confident it won’t happen again,” Lopetegui said.
“I spoke with him, and I’m sure he will learn from this incident. In the future, he will handle these kinds of situations better,” he added.
The incident occurred after Kudus was challenged by Spurs’ Micky van de Ven.
Following the tackle, van de Ven made a gesture while pointing to his head, prompting Kudus to react by poking the Dutch defender in the face.
He then lashed out at Pape Sarr as well.
After consulting with the video assistants, the referee upgraded Kudus’ yellow card to a red, resulting in his first sending-off since 2019.