Kurt Zouma has full belief West Ham United will return to their best when Everton visit London Stadium on Sunday.
The Frenchman will captain the Irons out against his former side, having spent a season on loan with the Toffees in the 2018/19 campaign, and is anticipating a tough challenge against Sean Dyche’s side.
Heading into Sunday’s outing on the back of defeats away at Aston Villa and Olympiacos in the last few days, Zouma knows the Hammers need to learn from those performances and cut out the errors versus Everton.
“We should be disappointed with the Premier League defeat at Villa,” Zouma, who celebrated his 29th birthday on Friday, said.
“We conceded four goals as well, which is not like us at West Ham. But there are games where nothing goes your way sometimes, and we try to stick to our plan and press them, but their plan was to pass through us. Tactically, we have to learn from that and learn how to manage the game better.
“Every game is tough in the Premier League. We made some mistakes at the weekend, in our last Premier League game, and we need to make sure we don’t do the same again. Everton will for sure be a tough game. We know they need points too but we need to bounce back, be ready to compete and go out to win the game.”
Having played every minute in the Premier League so far this season, Zouma is relishing his role in the Hammers team this campaign, one which has seen the No4 named captain by manager David Moyes.
He continued: “Personally, I think my season so far has been going great. I’ve been playing every game and I’ve played every minute in the Premier League, and I’m enjoying my football.
“I’ve got a great bunch of guys around me and we’ve got a good team. We just need to keep doing what we’ve been doing.”
Another Hammer in immense form is Jarrod Bowen, with the forward scoring six goals in the Premier League already this season.
The 26-year-old’s efforts have been rewarded with a long-term Hammers contract and a recall to the England squad earlier this month, and Zouma is thrilled to see Bowen bringing his best in Claret and Blue.
He continued: “Jarrod is in such good form. He’s always scoring goals and he can do it all. He’s improved a lot and he keeps on improving. I don’t know where he will stop!
“But hopefully he can keep scoring and our job is to help him get into the best positions to keep doing that. He’s an important player to us and he’s a great guy to have around the squad as well.”
A strong start to the 2023/24 season has seen the Irons pick up 14 points so far in the Premier League, progress to the fourth round of the Carabao Cup and win two of the three UEFA Europa League Group A matches contested.
Zouma has called on the team to keep picking up maximum points and take a good run of form into November.
“Our priority is to keep winning as many games as we can,” he added. “We won the UEFA Europa Conference League last season and now we want to win the Europa League.
“This team got so close a couple of years ago, reaching the semi-finals, and we want to give our all in every competition we play in and try to compete on all fronts.”
