WHZ View: A year of Soucek at West Ham – his season in numbers
A year ago today West Ham made arguably their best signing since Dimitri Payet joined from Marseille in June 2015.
Tomas Soucek has been a revelation at the London Stadium. The Czech Republic international joined initially on loan from Slavia Prague on January 29, 2020.
He made such an impression in just 13 Premier League games that David Moyes signed him permanently in the summer for £19million.
In our fight for survival, Soucek scored vital goals against Chelsea, Newcastle and Norwich. He was a key factor in us avoiding relegation and it really was a no brainer to keep him in east London long term.
It’s been during the 2020/21 season in which Soucek has really pushed on. Our number 28 has produced some fantastic performances over the last year, and according to Wyscout, he’s the number one ranked centre midfielder in the Premier League.
The numbers don’t lie
Soucek has won more aerial duels, 223, than any other player in the top-flight. That’s 10.39 per 90 minutes. He’s in a league of his own in that regard, second-placed Ollie McBurnie is far behind on 176.
The Czech averages 4.94 interceptions and 10.58 recoveries per 90 minutes. He’s won 502 duels overall in 20 league matches, that’s 23.4 per match!
Even more impressive is the fact he’s only picked up two bookings in this time. It’s a testament to how natural Soucek is at dispossessing his opposition.
Once in possession, he’s usually scoring or finding a teammate. He’s our leading goalscorer in the league with seven, and has a passing accuracy of 82.4%.
Soucek has played in each of our 20 league games, level with Declan Rice and Aaron Cresswell for minutes played this season (1,931). The three are joint third across the league for outfield players, bettered only by Andy Robertson and Harry Maguire.
Without Soucek’s goals this season we’d find ourselves currently ten points worse off than we are. Our haul of 25 points from 20 matches would leave us in 13th position, with a goal difference of minus one.
Not to say that the rest of the squad aren’t performing fantastically this season, they definitely are. But since Soucek joined we’ve looked a different threat altogether.
Long may it continue!
In other West Ham news, McAvennie wants us to sign this youngster over Jesse Lingard.