Suku, what’s going on? The Czech midfielder is out of form at the start of the season, will he catch on at the national team meeting?

Tomáš Souček’s start to the new season is not going well so far. Compared to his standards from last year, he has been significantly underperforming and neither the fans nor coach David Moyes are happy with his performances in a West Ham jersey. He can now only hope that the Czech midfielder will catch on during the national break.

You don’t have to be great football experts, nor analysts of the most detailed statistics from the Premier League, to notice that Tomas Soucek hasn’t been doing too well since the start of the new season at West Ham.

Last season, the Czech midfielder became the team’s top scorer alongside Michail Antonio, registering 10 accurate shots in 38 games. In addition, he was named Hammer of the Year in the club’s prestigious poll and his performances have attracted increased attention in Europe’s biggest football addresses.

This year, however, his form is not flourishing, quite the opposite. In the nine games he has played so far, he has only managed to score once. It is true that he had a slower start last year as well and only managed to score in his eighth league encounter, but it is not just about the sheer number of shots.

Soucek lacks overall predation and danger in the final third of the pitch, the factor that perhaps adorned him the most last season. An example is the last league game of the Hammers, who lost to Brentford 1:2.

The Czech footballer has an assist for the only goal of the team, when he extended the ball to Jarrod Bowen after a corner, but he did not record a single shot on goal and what is worse, he lost 12 duels, which is the most of all players in the match.

So far this year, Declan Rice, who is considered one of the best defensive midfielders in the whole league, seems to be the more offensive and better prepared of the extremely good defensive midfielders, who also gets to the front of the net more often and is able to make his way there. This is at least true of the Europa League, where he scored in both of West Ham’s games.

But Soucek, who is known across the Premier League as a so-called box-to-box midfielder, covering virtually the whole pitch and excelling in aerial duels, so far resembles most Englishmen’s cars most of all – without fuel in the tank.

One statistic that strongly supports this claim is the amount of chances created, culminating in finishes. While Rice was 76th in it out of the entire Premier League before the duel with Brentford, Soucek ranked, get this, 228th. Even Burnley goalkeeper Nick Pope (217th) was better off!

We can also mention the number of passes into the area known as the final third of the pitch, of which the Havlíčkův Brod native has only 43, while his teammate Rice collected 20 more.

Or do you want to hear the number of dribbles? The 22-year-old London native made 16, Soucek 2. This is alarming information for David Moyes and his entire coaching staff about the current form of the key player of the team and a reason to think about the next line-up.

There is probably no need to discuss the importance of Soucek for the whole of West Ham. But at the same time, let’s remember that Alex King, Manuel Lanzini and Mark Noble are waiting for their chance in the centre of midfield on the bench. So there is competition, and not the weakest.

Nevertheless, the Scottish coach is not breaking his grip on the captain of the Czech national team. After the Brentford game, he admitted that his form may be affected by the way Rice has started to show more as a versatile midfielder with attacking instincts this season.

“It’s probably slightly linked. I think Thomas is coming to terms with it a little bit. He did push through at Leeds, he just didn’t get his goal disallowed unfortunately. I’m hoping that both Soucek and Rice, who is playing more up front now, will score goals and we’ll have two regular scoring midfielders. Tomas is just trying to find his best form,” Moyes said.

He will have the next two weeks to find it, during which he will face a Czech national team meeting and two World Cup qualifying matches. Then West Ham could do with a full tank of gas, because in the next ten days he will face four very important clashes with Everton, Genk, Tottenham and Manchester City in three competitions.

Source: The Athletic