Tottenham Hotspur lacked an elite-level dribbler until they completed the signing of Mohammed Kudus from West Ham this week. We assess what he could bring to north London.
Why are Spurs signing Mohammed Kudus?
The short answer is simple. They don’t have much in the way of exceptional dribblers, and new manager Thomas Frank clearly wants to add one to their attack.
Kudus is a genuinely elite dribbler. Only Manchester City’s Jérémy Doku completed more dribbles (107) in the Premier League last season than Kudus (92). On a per-90 basis, too, only Doku (6.4) could better Kudus (3.2) among players with at least 1,000 minutes under their belt.
And it’s also noteworthy that Doku was playing for a team who saw a hell of a lot more of the ball and did a hell of a lot more attacking than Kudus’ West Ham. Doku averaged 71.9 touches of the ball per 90, while Kudus had just 52.2.
Kudus looks to beat a man remarkably often. He admits that he can’t help but try and take the ball into space as soon as he gets it, telling The Athletic last year: “When I see space with the ball at my feet, I don’t care what’s in front of me. I have to go for it.”
Last season, he attempted more dribbles (195) than any other player in the Premier League. Dribble attempts made up 12.9% of his on-ball actions. His dribble success rate of 47.2% was on the higher side among the most active dribblers in the league. (As an aside, Dejan Kulusevski was the only one of the 22 players to attempt 100+ dribbles who played for Spurs, and he had the worst dribble success rate of the lot – 31.9%.)
So, in Kudus, Tottenham are getting a high-volume, high-output dribbler, and one who is up to speed with the Premier League, having spent the last two years at West Ham. That was largely a successful time – hence Spurs paying big money for him – although his most recent season, when he scored five Premier League goals and added three assists, was underwhelming compared to his debut campaign in England, when he scored eight goals and got six assists as West Ham finished ninth.
West Ham wasn’t a very fun place to be by the end of 2024-25, and reports suggest a sale was necessary to fund the rebuild Graham Potter requires. In the end, Kudus was happy to be sacrificed.
The opportunity to play in the UEFA Champions League once again was undoubtedly alluring, and so too was the chance to play in a team who dominate the ball more. A team who could get the ball to Kudus more often. Not since his impressive 2022-23 campaign at Ajax that convinced West Ham to pay almost £40 million to sign him has he played for a possession-dominant team.
While Kudus is a transitional threat and he did well enough in a West Ham side who largely attacked on the transition in his two years there, he will surely do better in a team who dominate territory. His exceptional dribbling and ability to wriggle out of tight spaces should help Tottenham break down low blocks more effectively than they did under Ange Postecoglou.
He is a different profile of attacker to anyone else at Spurs. Tottenham players attempted more dribbles than those of any other team in the Premier League last season (790), but they ranked ninth for successful dribbles (308), with the worst dribble success rate in the league (39.0%). They also have no standout dribbler, instead boasting lots of players who attempt dribbles fairly consistently, and none of them do it particularly well.
None of the top 20 players for successful dribbles per 90 in the Premier League last season played for Spurs (500+ minutes played), whose most prolific dribblers were full-back Djed Spence (1.9 successful dribbles per 90) and the now-departed and largely ineffective Timo Werner (1.8). Mathys Tel was their best-performing winger who is still at the club, with 1.5 per 90.
Tel and Wilson Odobert are tricky players who can beat a man, but Postecoglou largely favoured wingers who could run hard and run fast. Listing out all Premier League players in order of the top speed they hit last season, Spurs had more players in the top 40 (five) than any other club. No other team had more players overall in the top 40 positions than Spurs had wingers alone (four).
Under Postecoglou, Spurs sought to release their quick wingers down the flanks to put low balls across the face of goal. They scored a lot of goals playing that way, but they also chucked too many men forward with every attack and struggled to balance attack with defence (if you somehow aren’t aware, they conceded 65 goals in 38 league games and finished 17th in the table). Someone like Kudus, who can beat his opponent more effectively than any of his new teammates, should theoretically reduce the need for so many players to pile forward, and therefore might even help improve Spurs’ woeful defensive record.
The truth is, however, that Kudus didn’t have the best 2024-25 season and, as well as being able to dribble past players, Spurs will obviously want end product from their new £55m man. In Premier League games last season, the Ghanaian recorded 40 carries (moving at least five metres with the ball) that he followed up with a shot or a chance created, but not a single one ended up with a goal or an assist.
Of the 47 players to register 25+ carries followed by a shot or chance created, Kudus was the only player to fail to record a single goal involvement from any of them. Some of that will be down to his teammates, but it is still a noteworthy failure of his from last season, and something he will need to improve on.
It is the season before that will really have caught the eye of Spurs and Frank, who is said to have been a long-time admirer of the player. The 24-year-old picked up seven goals or assists from his 49 carries that ended with a shot or a chance created in 2023-24. That is the player Spurs hope they are signing.
The club will also hope Frank’s history of improving forwards such as Bryan Mbeumo, Ivan Toney and Yoane Wissa means he can unlock the best of Kudus. Doing so is likely to require playing him in his best position.
At West Ham, Kudus was forced to play in a variety of positions, partly because he is versatile enough to play all across the front line, but also because Jarrod Bowen’s preference was to play from the right.
When Kudus signed for West Ham, he said he prefers to play centrally as a number 10, but he didn’t play there all that much in east London. At Spurs, his opportunities there are likely to be even more limited given they will also have James Maddison, Kulusevski and the incoming Morgan Gibbs-White to play the attacking midfield roles. And considering they have Son Heung-min, Tel and Odobert as options on the left wing, Kudus is likely to play on the right. He can also provide back-up in the centre-forward position, but it doesn’t seem likely that will be where he is used.
It remains to be seen if Kulusevski plays on the right for Frank, but he was so good centrally last season that one would assume his future lies there. That would leave Kudus and Europa League final hero Brennan Johnson to battle it out for the spot on the right flank.
Kudus is more comfortable on the right, too. In Premier League games last season, there was a stark difference between his per-90 numbers when playing on the right and left: he had more touches, touches in the opposition box, shots, shots on target, chances created, possession regains, possession regains in the final third, and shot-ending carries when deployed on the right wing.
He likes being able to come off the flank and attack goal on his stronger left foot, while he can also go around the outside and head for the byline on his right. On the left flank, his game is far more limited.
There was an obvious weakness in the Spurs squad, and Frank has set about addressing it in his first few weeks at the club. Kudus adds something Tottenham lacked, so he has the capacity to improve the team immediately.
This appears to be a signing that makes perfect sense.
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