WHZ Stats: Soucek did more than just score West Ham winner v Fulham
Tomas Soucek has played every minute of every Premier League game since joining West Ham permanently from Slavia Prague in the summer.
It may have cost a lot of money for the Hammers to snap up the Czech Republic international – £19.1million according to BBC Sport – but he’s really started to show why he’s been worth every penny of that this season.
On Saturday, the 25-year-old scored his first goal of the 2020/21 campaign with a neat finish into the bottom corner of Fulham’s goal in stoppage time.
Last-minute winners are always special but it was Soucek’s overall performance against the Cottagers that has us impressed and we’re just glad that it was him that managed to get the decisive, match-winning goal.
According to stats by WyScout, the former Slavia Prague midfielder had a pass accuracy of 91 per cent, which is far superior to his season average of 81.9 per cent.
He also completed all three of the passes he made into the final third and made 14 defensive recoveries, 10 interceptions and three clearances.
Clearly, Soucek did not just score the winner for West Ham but he is also a large part of why the Hammers managed to keep a clean sheet (if you ignore Ademola Lookman).
Declan Rice is widely seen as a defensive midfielder but the England international failed to beat Soucek in any of the categories we’ve looked at here except for fouls, with Rice making two fouls compared to Souzek’s zero. Obviously, that’s not an area you don’t want to be best in.
We’ve been really impressed by Soucek in the opening weeks of this season and hope he’s able to get through the upcoming international break unscathed ahead of some big games for David Moyes’ side.
After Czechia play against Germany, Israel and Slovakia in the coming days, the Hammers have back-to-back games against Sheffield United and Aston Villa.
Win those, and we might start talking about a charge for Europe.
In other West Ham news, the Irons are eyeing up Lyon striker Moussa Dembele.