I learnt lots from Terry, but captain in my own way now

KURT ZOUMA is now a couple of months into his tenure as West Ham captain, but the novelty is still compounded whenever he happens to bump into the seemingly omnipresent figure of Mark Noble

- Malik Quzia

"Every time he sees me, he calls me 'skipper"," he says. "It's weird for me, because I used to call him that." When Noble, now the club's sporting director, retired two years ago, David Moyes had no real decision to make as to who would inherit the armband, Declan Rice long established as heir.

Following Rice's departure for Arsenal this summer, though, the succession plan was less clear.

Stalwarts such as Aaron Cresswell, Angelo Ogbonna and Lukasz Fabianski had the experience, but also doubts over where, or how much, they would play this term.

James Ward-Prowse, club captain at Southampton, was touted as a contender even having only just signed, as was Harry Maguire, who never did. In the end, though, it was Zouma offered the nod.

Given that less than two years ago, the defender's career threatened to be defined by an animal  abuse scandal, it is tempting to frame this latest development as another step in his personal rehabilitation and another deliberate show of a faith from Moyes in a player he has stuck by throughout. The reality, though, is less grandiose and less confected.

Internally, the incident has been consigned to the past, and Moyes explained last month that having made Zouma (left, training this week) stand-in skipper while the Hammers' final squad took shape, he saw no reason to change tack after impressive individual and collective starts.