Discussing his signings of the summer with Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer, Micah Richards plumped for a West Ham star that’s made a real impact at the London Stadium.
The Hammers really took their time in bringing in players in the window just gone, and didn’t even sign their first until the week that the new season was beginning.
It’s to their credit that the club didn’t panic despite having £100m+ in their pocket from the sale of Declan Rice, and the signings that they did bring in were all signed with a definitive role and purpose in mind.
Thus far, all four of Edson Alvarez, James Ward-Prowse, Mohammed Kudus and Konstantinos Mavropanos all seemed to have worked out brilliantly, but it’s the England man that Richards picked out for special praise.
“I’ve banged on about Ward-Prowse now for so long and nobody was taking me seriously. I was literally saying, he’s in a struggling team that don’t have a style of play and once he goes somewhere where he can express himself more, he’s got more than just taking free-kicks. He’s a comfortable footballer,” he said on the Rest is Football podcast.
“When he’s played for England he’s not really took his chance so everyone sort of questions is he good enough for the highest level. But he is. He’s an amazing player. And he works hard, he can sit deep, also play further forward. I just love him. He’s been my signing of the season so far.”
Again on Thursday night it was Ward-Prowse in the thick of it, his set piece delivery from two corners helping the Hammers to two goals via Kudus and Tomas Soucek.
If he continues playing at such a high level, the former Southampton captain will surely go down as one of the bargains of the season, and he could yet help fire the east Londoners to more domestic or European glory.