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As much as I, and I'm reasonably certain most of us on here love the bloke, Is Bowen REALLY captain material?
CPP may have proven to be somewhat of a fraud managerial wise, but was he wrong in stating that Bowen isn't really up to being team captain?
Apart from being our 'best' player, I honestly don't think he was given the armband for any other reason as we all know he'll always be the first on the teamsheet (and that includes potato salad and JWP).
Does the 'best' player necessarily make an ideal choice to captain the team?
Is it time to hand the armband over? And if so, to whom?
Am fully expecting a cսnt in the bastard.

Wilson would be our mr nasty, touch of magic, in the ref's face etc
but hes not going to be on the pitch enough.

Yeah. Agree with all that

On that incident, and one for the refs on here, obviously Mykolenko should have gone for violent conduct (because it was) but VAR were seemingly disinterested, although it might have come under a sharper focus if Paqueta had gone down holding his chest - you know, where he was struck - rather than immediately grabbing his face. But withy the ref having given a yellow, why wasn't the free kick reversed? 

We just need more leaders in general, if we had them, it wouldn't matter who had the armband on.

Look at Tarkowski on Monday, he was into the ref non stop, arguably he stopped their left back getting a red for a blatant elbow, he was over there straight in the refs face. Bowen stood behind it all, giggling with Pickford. Gealish was cute, staying on the floor after every foul, making it obvious to the ref. Summerville arguably got rougher treatment, but you wouldn't have known it.

We are not streetwise at all as a team. Don't get me wrong, not my favourite part of the game, but every other club does it, so we need to be more nasty. I can see Nuno proper changing that about us, and not before time.

I think the key is that there isn't anyone else better qualified... which, as much as anything, highlights the dearth of quality. Potter made JWP his vice captain ffs

If (and its a big IF) we had a commanding defender or a combative midfielder, you'd perhaps prefer them... but we don't, which is why we're 19th

I don't think he's right for captain either. But it would be an insult to remove it now. Seems to me in modern football captaincy goes to the best player and not the best captain anyway. So maybe it's right. By example Bowen is our only player that p!ays well every game.

Taking the Captaincy from Bowen would be both foolish and pointless.

Why would you want to piss off our best player?

As someone mentioned earlier, our best ever player and Captain wasn't a loud shouter, that was Bobby Moore.

Personally I think Kilman will now thrive under Nuno, with JWP looking like he is out of the picture, I would make Kilman the number two Captain to Bowen, JWP's current role, Potts the Captain for the future.

Do not piss Bowen off.

 

I think old school captains are a thing of the past.  Look at some of them in the prem these days.  Odegaard etc.

I don't think Bowen is naturally suited to being a captain. That being said I can't really think of many if any in our current squad that are, which is part of our current problem.

IMO very few can carry off the role of Captain simply by being the best player. Bobby Moore could, but most of the better Captains I have seen at West Ham weren't necessarily the best players, although of course they all had to be good players. 
Malcolm Allison 
Noel Cantwell
Billy Bonds
Alvin Martin
Kevin Nolan
Mark Noble
All natural leaders, through their force of personality, which I don't think Bowen comes close to.

So maybe Potter had a point, but if he had an alternative in mind to replace Bowen, it is hard to think who it could have been. Only Soucek and JWP have more experience of captaincy but surely not?



 

I was thinking about this today. He is captain and thats it. Our best, and everyones favourite - player, scorer of our cup winning goal. its not even going to be discussed imo. The only way it changes is if jarrod himself decides he doesnt want it anymore. I think jwp got given the vice captaincy to support bowen, and now someone else needs to take this on. What we really need is a confident, vocal centre back. It should be kilman, who captained wolves - maybe nuno can get something out of him at last?

 

actually neil might have been captain?

bowen is our best player by miles and loves the captaincy, take it off him and he's embarrassed and off. we need a lucas neil or scott parker who were good examples of leaders on the field without the armband.

My Captain for the future would be Potts but not for a while.

I know he's young and new to the team, and has put in mixed performances, but I noticed Magassa being very vocal and doing a lot of pointing when we were defending, so maybe not yet, but one for the future maybe.

 

We don't have a skipper type in the squad ..which is one of our major issues imo.

The spine of the team is soft as shite.

Dawson was a  quiet individual ,but on the pitch he took no shit and had that presence about him.

We need a  more vocal Dawson type at the heart of the side .
 

Mike Oxsaw" wrote: ↑29 Sep 2025, 22:51 A captain doesn't have to be the most technically gifted player on the pitch, but he does need to be the most inspirational.


 

A captain doesn't have to be the most technically gifted player on the pitch, but he does need to be the most inspirational.

We were spoilt with Moore & Bonds, but them's proper captain material and what we should be looking for..

It depends what you categorise as leadership. Clearly you can have the Kevin Nolan type who is vocal, always barking at people, or you can have the ones who lead by example, constantly turning up and dragging the team through nearly every game and who “gets” the club. Bowen does that in abundance. 

Undoubtedly it has helped us keep him. It would be majorly wanky to change captain, and a huge embarrassment to him, not to mention completely unwarranted. 

He’s our best player, but not a leader on the pitch.

As a team, we lack leadership in general. It’s not just about the captain, you need a few leaders on the pitch.

Ideally, we would have had a leader at centre back or centre midfield. But we had already dropped £75m on two centre backs who couldn’t lead a Mexican wave, never mind a team. During the summer, we should have brought in a leader. Granit Xhaka would have been an option, but we also needed some pace and our team was already too old.

Eerie Decent" wrote: ↑29 Sep 2025, 19:38 I agree he's not captain. The problem was, and is, a lack of alternative who's a guarantee starter.

He looked very uneasy being interviewed on Sky. Maybe Nuno will be brutal here as well. 

I agree he's not captain. The problem was, and is, a lack of alternative who's a guarantee starter.

I think the only squad player we have to take on that role is the Kraut, but I'm old school and believe that the captain should be in defence or no further forward that defensive midfield so that he has the game in front of him most of the time and can actually lead by changing the team (style) as he sees the game unfold well before the manager intervenes.