Stuart Pearce: West Ham ace Soucek is ‘not going anywhere’
West Ham ace Tomas Soucek continued his excellent season last night by scoring a hat-trick for the Czech Republic in their 6-2 win over Estonia.
The big-man netted three times in 17 minutes of play, one with his head and the others with either foot.
Surely it’s only a matter of time before a bid comes in for the in-form Czech midfielder?
However, according to assistant boss Stuart Pearce, we have nothing to worry about. Talking to talkSPORT on Thursday [9.00 am], Pearce revealed the Hammers won’t be letting him go.
“No, he’s happy here and he’s not going anywhere, that’s for sure,” said Pearce.
“He’s got a wonderful attitude to work, on his days off he comes into work, he’s just really an absolute pleasure to work with.”
A perfect hattrick
What a massive success the signing of Soucek has been. Our number 28 has been a huge hit at the London Stadium, we rely on him heavily in both penalty areas. It was very encouraging to see his performance in the Czech Republic win.
Soucek was unplayable last night for his country. As well as bagging three, he completed 90% of his passes and won possession 13 times [Wyscout]. He’s arguably the best box-to-box midfielder in the country at the moment.
His three goals were fantastic. The first a trademark header – he met it at the near post and looped it to the far corner. Minutes later he struck from 25 yards with his right foot into the bottom corner, something we haven’t see of him yet. The third was typical of his play, pressing high and getting a tap-in for his work.
West Ham’s top goalscorer has really caught the eye since making his initial loan switch from Slavia Prague last year. He’s scored 12 Premier League goals and developed a solid relationship with the skipper Declan Rice.
His performance last night is very encouraging for Hammers fans. Despite scoring against Arsenal at the weekend he did appear to look tired. Aside from the incident at Fulham, Soucek has played every minute of every game for West Ham in the top-flight since joining.
Hopefully, Soucek can keep up his momentum and score some more goals when he returns to east London. The next three fixtures will be huge for our European push having collected just four points from our last four games.
Even against Leeds, we didn’t look fantastic – Patrick Bamford and Raphinha were both wasteful. The way in which we sacrificed a three-goal lead against Arsenal was concerning, but hopefully, we can bounce back against Wolves at Molineux.
In other West Ham news, will the Hamers sign a new keeper this summer?