Soucek could use a rest. But his schedule at West Ham is very busy right now

Almost everyone who has been following Tomáš Souček’s recent performances at West Ham or in the national team has noticed it. Even a robot like Soucek sometimes gets fed up and needs a rest. But there is no time.

Unfortunately, Soucek is still a shadow of the footballer who dragged West Ham and the national team last year. But there is a perfectly logical explanation for this, the 26-year-old midfielder is totally overloaded.

It shows in his performances, he doesn’t occupy as much space as before, he doesn’t get into finishing positions, plus he loses simple balls, which stems from fatigue.

He played all 38 games in the Premier League last season, and he played the full 90 minutes each time. In the FA Cup he played in 3 games and also made 15 starts for the Czech national team. After the Euro, which stretched until the beginning of July, he had only a short three-week break and jumped right back into training.

In this Souček may have overestimated his strength, because his fatigue is quite evident. Ideally, he would need at least a week or two of rest, but West Ham’s busy schedule doesn’t allow for that.

On Sunday, October 17, the Hammers will play at the strong Everton, who are currently in fifth place in the table. On Thursday, West Ham will welcome Genk in the Europa League, three days after that it will be the turn of Tottenham.

On Wednesday, West Ham will play Manchester City in the EFL Cup, and on the weekend they will face Aston Villa. So the schedule until the end of October is packed and coach David Moyes will need Soucek at his best.

It is quite likely that he will give him a rest at least in the Europa League against Genk, he also played only half an hour in the first game against Rapid Vienna.

However, it is not advisable to play with such an overload, as it can turn into a nasty injury. Pedri, the young Spaniard, also knows this. He was admired for the number of games he played, without a break he joined the training with Barcelona immediately after the Olympics.

However, this has cruelly backfired and he is now laboured with a muscle injury that has returned repeatedly. After the initial two-week break, he jumped into the duel with Benfica, where he lasted only 67 minutes on the pitch and had to substitute again due to a thigh injury, thus missing the national team meeting. And nobody would like to see a similar scenario with Soucek.

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