Czech footballer Tomáš Souček found himself under another wave of overwhelming criticism after the weekend round of the Premier League. Although the national team captain featured in West Ham’s starting line-up during the hard-fought and extremely important win against Southampton, he did not finish the game and received indiscriminate evaluations for his performance.
He was one of the heroes for two seasons, paying for the darling of the demanding fans of the East London club.
But in the current year of the top English competition, Tomáš Souček, like the entire team of Scottish manager David Moyes, failed in terms of performance.
According to supporters and the London media, however, the deterioration of the Czech football player in particular is too pronounced and glaring.
This was confirmed again after the game against Saints, which the Hammers won 1-0 at home. Souček played as the more offensive of the three central midfielders and was taken off the field in the 68th minute. Immediately after the match came harsh criticism.
“He was absolutely appalling. No more excuses, Moyes has to make a major decision about Soucek. For the good of the team,” Hammers News wrote. “The manager must see that Souček is hindering West Ham in almost all aspects of the game,” added the author.
The Czech footballer is under fire for the fact that he almost never takes the ball straight into motion, i.e. in such a way that he immediately directs himself to the next construction of the game. “It slows the whole thing down and seems like it’s going to run into trouble every time,” the site said.
According to the analytics server WhoScored.com, Souček was the worst player in the Hammers’ starting line-up, while the analysis of his passes stood out from his statistics in a negative sense.
In 68 minutes, the 28-year-old midfielder passed only twenty-one times with a success rate of 52 percent.
“That’s an absolutely unheard of number for a central midfielder. He was inexcusably bad, there’s no other way to describe his performance,” criticized Hammers News.
Other periodicals, which score West Ham players after each match, had a similar opinion. In all of them, Souček was rated the worst of the team, only the zero-rated forward Danny Ings could partially “equal” him.
“Soucek was clumsy, losing balls. Yes, he’s in the team for tackles and headers, so it’s a bit harsh to rate him for passing and ball work. But on the other hand, he’s a midfielder after all. Lavia completely overshadowed him,” noted the club’s Claret and Hugh website, how Souček fell behind the 19-year-old Belgian midfielder of the last team in the table.
In most matches, Souček made up for the lack of passing quality with defensive contributions, but on Sunday he did not succeed in this regard either. In the duel, he did not score any blocks, catch passes or take away the ball.
There were frequent whistles from the London Stadium stands in the first half. West Ham weren’t able to play well and resorted to kicking balls to the helpless Ings.
“Souček was one of the causes of this problem,” reported London’s Evening Standard.
Now it will be interesting to see if Moyes will keep the Czech representative in the starting line-up again. On Wednesday, West Ham plays another existential home duel against Newcastle, who after the weekend win over Manchester United fought their way to third place in the Premier League.
The Hammers are still uncomfortably mired in the relegation mire. In fourteenth place, they have a single point advantage over eighteenth-placed Leeds.
Table:
1.
Arsenal
29
23
3
3
70:27
72
2.
Manchester City
28
20
4
4
71:26
64
3.
Newcastle
27
13
11
3
41:19
50
4.
Tottenham
29
15
5
9
53:41
50
5.
Manchester United
27
15
5
7
41:37
50
6.
Brighton
26
12
7
7
49:34
43
7.
Brentford
28
10
13
5
46:37
43
8.
Liverpool
27
12
6
9
48:33
42
9.
Aston Villa
28
12
5
11
37:39
41
10.
Fulham
28
11
6
11
39:39
39
11.
Chelsea
28
10
8
10
29:30
38
12.
Crystal Palace
29
7
9
13
24:39
30
13.
Wolverhampton
29
7
7
15
23:42
28
14.
West Ham United
27
7
6
14
25:34
27
15.
Everton
29
6
9
14
23:41
27
16.
Nottingham
28
6
9
13
23:50
27
17.
Bournemouth
28
7
6
15
27:55
27
18.
Leeds
28
6
8
14
36:48
26
19.
Leicester
28
7
4
17
39:49
25
20.
Southampton
29
6
5
18
23:47
23
