WHZ View: Coufal out for revenge as West Ham host Spurs
Vladimir Coufal will be looking to make amends for his performance when West Ham met Tottenham back in October.
The Czech Republic international was making just his second appearance for David Moyes’ side in the thrilling 3-3 draw at White Hart Lane.
After winning 3-0 on his debut against Leicester, he came up against a red hot Heung-Min Son. Spurs were 3-0 up within 16 minutes, with most of the attacking threat coming down the Hammers right-hand side.
A nightmare start
Kane, Son and co proved to be a rude awakening as he had an afternoon to forget. The number five completed just 59% of his passes, with none of his long ball attempts finding a teammate [WyScout]. He attempted five crosses, of which again, 0% were successful.
Coufal also lost possession 13 times over the 90 minutes, and won just 50% of his defensive duels. Overall, he was successful in under half of his actions, 47% to be exact.
Since then, Coufal has gone on to become one of West Ham’s most consistent performers, with many calling him the signing of the season. He was a steal for just £5m from Slavia Prague.
But will he be able to handle Son this time around? The Korean has enjoyed his football this season, scoring 13 goals and 4 assists in the Premier League. He has a dribbling success rate of 63.24%, which ranks him 16th best in the top-flight.
Coufal has some impressive stats himself, however. The Czech has the 12th best record for defensive duels in the league, winning 178 so far. That’s despite coming into the West Ham side in October, missing the first three matches of the campaign.
He’s amassed that impressive ranking whilst coming up against some of the best players in the league. So far, Coufal has gone toe to toe with Raheem Sterling, Sadio Mane, James Rodriguez, Wilfried Zaha and Jack Grealish.
His performance against Grealish, in particular, as we won 3-1 at Villa Park was incredible. Coufal marked the Villa captain out of the game, he barely had a sniff. He was so ineffective he had to swap to right-wing in the end to get a look into the game.
Coufal appears to have solved out long-standing issues at right-back. Moyes said after the Villa game that he thrives upon playing world-class opposition. Let’s hope he’s up for it tomorrow, we’re really going to need him.
In other West Ham news, here is our predicted XI to face Spurs.