James Wood Fan Q&A: Soucek and Coufal can lead West Ham to Europe
Every week we’ll be asking West Ham fans on Twitter and Facebook for questions that will be answered by our editor, James Wood. You can join in by liking West Ham Zone on Facebook or following James on Twitter, and watching out for weekly mailbag posts.
David Moyes has transformed West Ham this season from relegation strugglers into genuine European football contenders.
So often as Hammers fans we have become accustomed to the annual battle against the drop. This campaign has been by far the best since we moved to the London Stadium, the sort of results we were promised by Gold, Sullivan and Brady.
It’s been a wonderful season for West Ham supporters. Whatever happens now, it can absolutely go down as a successful year. We’ve been in the European places for a fair few weeks now, and a lot of us are hopeful that we can stay there come the end of the season.
We asked for your burning questions about the Hammers this week for West Ham Zone editor James Wood to answer. One fan wanted to know if the club believe they can stay in the top six.
Although it hasn’t been said outright in the media, the players and the manager are confident that we can end the season in the top six. In fairness to them, they’re right to not come out and say it either. It’s best if we just keep under the radar and continue picking up points as we go.
Declan Rice spoke after the Leeds United win to Sky Sports and spoke about how good the atmosphere is around the club. He went on to say that it is now in our hands, but we do have to win the big games. He’s not wrong either – we still have to play Chelsea, Leicester and Everton, all at home. We’re looking good at the London Stadium now, there are definitely a lot of reasons to be confident about it.
Amongst the players there is a different mentality this season, mainly down to the arrivals of Tomas Soucek and Vladimir Coufal. Both players have an elite winning mentality and have picked up a lot of silverware whilst playing in the Czech Republic. As reported by The Athletic, the duo often spend their days off at Rush Green training and have even roped Andriy Yarmolenko into it too. Soucek and Coufal both played Champions League football last season, drawing away to Barcelona and Inter Milan in the group stage. They’ll be hungry for more of that next season.
As well as this, Jesse Lingard joining from Manchester United on loan was a big statement of intent. He came with aspirations to get back into the England frame, which he has achieved after just six games. He is used to playing European football every season, and has played in a World Cup semi final. Lingard has the perfect mentality to get us to Europe and his performances are demonstrating that he has the belief we can do it.
The togetherness and worth ethic is currently spot on in Moyes’ squad. There is absolutely the belief that we can finish in the top six and qualify for Europe. This season will be seen as a success regardless of where we finish, but the players and the boss are doing all they can to get into the top six.
In other West Ham news, Frank McAvennie has predicted the result of the clash with Arsenal.