Will Soucek have a star competitor? West Ham are very interested in Kanté

Tomas Soucek has been in a virtually unshakeable position since his arrival at West Ham in January 2020. He has maintained that despite a slight drop in performance, only for coach David Moyes to quit and the question is how Julen Lopetegui will see it. Indeed, the Hammers are reportedly very interested in N’Golo Kanté.

• Tomas Soucek has played almost everything at West Ham
• His position may change a little with the arrival of a new coach
• West Ham are very interested in Kanté

When Tomáš Souček left for West Ham in January 2020, the London club was drowning in the fight for salvation. But the lanky midfielder helped save the day with three goals and solid defensive performances, but the best was yet to come.

In the following season, Soucek netted 10 goals and led West Ham to a sensational sixth place finish. Coach David Moyes praised Soucek and Coufal afterwards, stating that the two of them were a big part of the Hammers’ rise, bringing a winning mentality as well as greater professionalism and staying after training.

The following year, West Ham finished seventh and qualified for the Conference League, which they eventually won. The 2022/23 season brought relegation and a momentary relegation game, eventually West Ham remained in 14th place. In the final season West Ham returned to the higher echelons, eventually finishing ninth.

However, coach Moyes still left the club and the management brought in a completely different strategist – Julen Lopetegui. While Moyes didn’t play nice football with the club at all and relied on defensive, pragmatism and results, Lopetegui as a Spaniard has offensive football in his blood with construction from the goalkeeper.

Kanté as a big competition?

The question is how this will affect Tomas Soucek’s role. After all, he was indispensable in Moyes’ concept of football, where there were a lot of duels, a lot of defending and most of the goals came from standard situations. However, out of the last four Premier League seasons and 152 games in total, he has only missed six, mostly due to slight injuries.

Soucek is a great battler who never concedes anything, but he doesn’t have a completely good delivery by Premier League standards. And it’s not certain that Lopetegui, who professes a Spanish style with great ball possession, will prefer a more footballing defensive midfielder.

And according to The Athletic, he’s already looking at other options. They liked the best defensive midfielder in the world a few years ago, N’Golo Kanté. He moved to Saudi Arabia last year after a long injury layoff, but he showed at the Euros that he hasn’t lost much of his quality and even at 33 years of age, he still gave an outstanding performance.

West Ham would so love to bring him back to London and have sent Al-Ittihad an initial offer of €15m, only to be decidedly unsuccessful. According to English newspaper The Athletic, the Saudis are not interested in selling their star and to even consider this option, the offer would have to be higher than €25 million.

For Soucek, it would be direct competition for the defensive midfielder position. Theoretically, the two workers could play alongside each other, but West Ham still have Edson Álvarez available for the number eight position, for whom they shelled out €38 million to Ajax last year.

But the Czech captain has already fended off one competition. In the winter, English international Kalvin Phillips arrived from Manchester City. He played only 8 matches, only once in the starting line-up instead of Soucek, but he received a red card and spent the rest of his engagement on the bench or on the sidelines.

Source: The Athletic, Transfermarkt