West Ham manager David Moyes has admitted that midfielder Tomas Soucek is currently not at his best after his sides gut-wrenching defeat against Premier League newcomers Brentford. Post-match, manager Moyes opened up about the tall midfielder’s underwhelming form that has inadvertently seen partner Declan Rice flourish at the expense of the 26-year-old, who has so far failed to hit the heights of last season.
David Moyes said “Tomas has not quite got on the end of things as well and things have not fallen for him. He scored last week but it was chalked out at Leeds. I think he is fighting for a wee bit of his best form. Is it to do with Declan getting forward a but more? Well I am hoping the two of them, can get goals and gives us two goalscoring midfield players but I think Tomas has struggled a wee bit.”
Rice himself has endured a great start to the 2021/22 campaign scoring twice so far on the Irons’ Europa League journey with goals against Rapid Wien and Dinamo Zagreb rightfully justifying the £100million price tag placed on his shoulders by the hierarchy. The former Slavia Prague midfielder will be hoping to get back up to speed as soon as possible with Moyes needing him to rediscover the form that saw many fans labelling him as one of the most underrated players in the league last season. So far this season, the defensive midfielder has made seven Premier League appearances and has averaged a WhoScored.com rating of 6.87 which is seen as average. Of course, Sunday’s defeat solely wasn’t down to the performance of Soucek but is the European adventure starting to hinder the Premier League form already of the east Londoners? Not according to Moyes who gave his verdict on this matter in his post-match press conference.
David Moyes said “No concern, we need to get used to it and I hope we get used to it next season as well. I am not going to complain about it, I say bring it on. The defeats were very close but we have to get used to it and we need to win, I want to be successful in the Premier League. I don’t think the loss is any other reason than we did not score the goals today and take our opportunities.”
Soucek alongside a number of different West Ham stars will be jetting off for the October international break and fans will certainly hope to see an upturn in his performances once he returns with Everton next up on the horizon. Soucek, 26, played the full 90 minutes in the contest that was settled by a last-minute winner from Bees substitute Yoane Wissa that broke Hammers supporters’ hearts right at the end. Despite not having the greatest of starts to this new season, the Czech Republic international did play a big part in West Ham’s equaliser in this game as he set up Jarrod Bowen who found the net with his half-volley attempt from a corner late on.
