Graeme Souness destroys West Ham defender Kurt Zouma
Graeme Souness has held no punches back in his assessment of West Ham defender Kurt Zouma.
The French international was left out of the Hammers clash with Leicester City due to illness, despite being initially named in the side.
Souness said he had ‘zero sympathy’ for the 27-year-old as his absence from the squad was discussed.
“I’ve got zero sympathy for him if he’s turned up today and got abuse from his own supporters.” He said on Sky Sports.
“West Ham’s roots are in the east end of London, salt of the earth people, the vast majority would not be accepting.
“I’ve got major problems with this. That cat hadn’t done anything wrong, it was picked up and abused for entertainment.
“It wasn’t out of anger, they are laughing.”
Too little to late
West Ham should have made the decision to leave him out as soon as the video surfaced.
With financial and footballing benefits on their mind they haven’t done Zouma any favours at all and have actually worsened the scrutiny of the player.
If they would have left him out and taken the appropriate action to discipline the Frenchman without heavy outside scrutiny prompting them, the whole saga might be over by now.
Instead, there are the likes of Souness and many more keeping up their relentless hounding of Zouma despite him not being in the squad.
What he has done is wrong, there is no two ways about it, it was a shockingly disgusting video.
Everyone must do better in remembering what has been increasingly on the forefront of people’s mind for quite some time now – mental health.
It was labelled as ‘illness’ but that could mean anything, with controversy drowning Zouma at this moment in time.
The Irons centre-back has made a huge mistake and he has felt the brunt of it over the last week or so and everyone needs to remember that in their relentless criticism.
In other Hammers news, View: West Ham must utilise set pieces v Leicester City.