West Ham’s Declan Rice 2.0 could be arriving from an unexpected direction | OneFootball

Mamadou Kante could be a player around whom West Ham could build their midfield, and that will draw comparison with another player who's already left.

West Ham United's strong start to the season has included Mohamadou Kante, who's broken through into their starting XI, and there are similarities between him and another former Hammer who's gone on to great things.

Following relegation from the Premier League at the end of 2025-26, West Ham United have been focused on a quick return to the top flight. As the Championship's first international break, they've made decent progress. They broke up for three weeks with the Irons in second place in the table behind surprise early leaders.

Dropping from the League comes at a cost. It's not uncommon for relegated clubs to lose some of their most important players during that summer break, and this has been the case at The London Stadium this summer, with high-profile names such as Mateus Fernandes, Crysencio Summerville and El Hadji Malick Diouf among those to have left.

This creates opportunities for others, and one player to have seized his opportunity for West Ham this season has been defensive midfielder Mohamadou Kante, who's been with the club since 2024 but has broken through into their starting XI this summer and was arguably their most important player in their last match before the international break.

Mohamadou Kante has seized his opportunity as a result of summer changes at The London Stadium

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Following on from substitutes' appearances at the end of West Ham's relegation season in 2025-26, Mohamadou Kante has seized the opportunity granted to him by head coach Nuno Espírito Santo, breaking into their starting XI and becoming one of their most important players by the time of the international break.

Kante was in the Irons' starting eleven for their first Championship match of the season at Burnley, and has featured in all eight of their League matches so far, starting in four of them. The 21-year-old is a defensive midfielder, and arguably what's been most impressive about him this season has been that he's been chipping in with goals.

He scored the first of his senior career in their 3-0 win against Derby County at the start of September, and chipped in with further goals in their last two games before the break against Wrexham and Millwall. Notably, all three of these goals came after he'd been introduced as a substitute.

And Kante was arguably their most important single player in their 2-2 draw at The Den, even though he started the game on the bench. His 74th-minute goal started their comeback from two goals down, and while he may have ended the fixture in the dressing room as a result of a red card for pulling back Millwall's Kyrell Lisbie, it's doubtful that Santo will hold this against the player, since otherwise Lisbie would have been through on goal with the score tied at 2-2 and just a couple of minutes of the match left to play.

What West Ham fans have been saying about Mohamadou Kante

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Mohamadou Kante's start for West Ham United has provoked considerable discussion on social media, so here's a selection of what's been said about him online by Irons fans.

This fan feels that Kante's best role might be as a "supersub":

Amadou celebrated his 21st birthday the day after the Millwall match on the 20th September, and this fan feels that the red card that he picked up in that meeting was a sacrifice that fans won't forget:

But this fan feels that Kante still has much to learn, if he's to make it at the highest level:

Kante's West Ham progress may draw comparisons with Declan Rice

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A young defensive midfielder breaking through at West Ham United will inevitably draw comparisons with another young player who broke through at West Ham United more than a decade ago.

Declan Rice signed his first professional contract with the club in December 2015. The young player had transferred from the youth system at Chelsea two years earlier, and he made his senior debut for them as a substitute from the bench on the last day of the 2016-17 season, in a 2-1 win at Burnley.

Rice ended up a huge West Ham success. He ended his time with the club by lifting the Europa Conference League trophy, West Ham's first major trophy since the 1980 FA Cup, and left that summer for Arsenal in a transfer worth £105 million in total, making him the joint- highest transfer fee ever paid for a British player at the time alongside Jack Grealish on the basis of the £100 million main fee, with the £5 million of add-ons making him the most expensive.

Kante's route to the West Ham starting eleven has come by a different route. Born in Paris, he started his career in the B team for Paris FC, scoring twice for them in nine matches before making his move to The London Stadium in August 2024. But his contract included a season-long loan at his first club, and he made his first first-team appearances for them from the bench as they secured promotion from Ligue 2 to Ligue 1.

Bringing through players of the quality of Declan Rice doesn't happen every day. Rice is a generational talent which has already reached the summit of the professional game with Arsenal. But bringing through another young defensive midfielder could give the club a lynchpin around whom they could build their team for several years to come.

Mohamadou Kante still has a lot to learn, and the start of his time in their first team hasn't come without mistakes and mishaps. But he's made good progress and could turn into one to watch. And if he can get near to the levels that Rice managed before his big money move, West Ham