Tomas Soucek: West Ham have lacked character but it was back for Tottenham and Man Utd performances

Tomas Soucek is not the most obvious Graham Potter midfielder. Towering at 6ft 4ins, a physical presence more than a technical one, he does not entirely embody the pass-and-move philosophy the West Ham head coach has become known for.

Try telling that to the Czech Republic captain. Or his manager. While results have faltered under the Hammers’ third head coach in 12 months, the 30-year-old has not been far from his effective best.

Soucek rounded off a memorable week with the opening goal in the Hammers’ first win in nine at Man Utd on Sunday. It didn’t quite match welcoming his third child, Daniel, to the world four days earlier. Not only because of United’s current predicament but because Soucek is already closing in on the best scoring season of his career.

Five goals since Potter’s arrival have taken him to nine for the season; one more in the Super Sunday showdown with Nottm Forest would equal his best Premier League return in a single campaign with a game to go.

Soucek’s passing numbers will never top the charts but his versatility and industry is more synonymous with the relatively new boss’ approach.

In his five years at the London Stadium, the 30-year-old has been used as a No 6 enforcer, a box-to-box No 8 and as a No 10 battering ram, his physicality and late runs into opposition areas a consistent threat – as Old Trafford saw last weekend.

The main change under Potter’s fluid style is getting used to playing all three roles in one game. And he’s relishing in it.

“He wants to use me in many positions, and I like that,” Soucek tells Sky Sports from the Hammers’ Rush Green training base. “I want to be flexible, I can play deep and I can play higher, that’s my style – what I love about football and being a midfielder is when they can rotate all over the pitch.

“The manager likes it as well, and I hope we can find the balance together. We just need to be successful now.

“You can go for the ball as a No 6, then end up as a No 8 and finish as a No 10 all within a game. The other midfielders can all rotate around it, and if you can find that balance then I think for the opponent it’s the hardest thing to go with you.

“We need more of this, so I hope we have great momentum for the last two games and we can show what we can do in those matches.”

The win at Old Trafford ended a depressingly familiar run of poor form this season. The natural parting of the ways with David Moyes heralded a new dawn, but the Hammers could still finish directly above the relegation zone without backing up that victory in their final two games.

Potter will likely be afforded more time than Julen Lopetegui, who lasted only 22 games in the hot seat, to implement his style given the length of time it took to bed in at Brighton, his last successful role.

There have been green shoots pre-dating Sunday’s overdue win, including a creditable draw with Tottenham in the previous game, but more generally mental fragility has been as much of a concern as anything tactical.

Only six points have been picked up from losing positions all season, and none of them victories – records which only better relegated duo Ipswich and Southampton. The Hammers have started and finished games poorly, conceding 10 goals in the opening 10 minutes of matches and 11 in the last.

“It’s always difficult to find exactly what’s wrong when you’re losing,” says Soucek. We all want to be winning, it’s tough to realise and it was tougher for us because we didn’t win for a few games.

“Against Tottenham, the game before Man Utd, I saw the passion we had, that’s what we were missing because as footballers, we have a lot of individual quality but I think we need to have more character to show we are all united and together.

“With that passion, it doesn’t matter who loses the ball when we do, but we go for it again, altogether. That’s what we showed against Tottenham and Man Utd, and we need to bring that into every game.

“The character, the passion of the team beats individual quality and if we put individual quality and spirit together, we can be a really good team.”

Soucek is now one of the most experienced Hammers in the current squad, with only Michail Antonio and Aaron Cresswell ahead of him on the appearance front both of whom are out of contract this summer with Cresswell already confirmed to leave the club.

So too is Vladimir Coufal, with whom Soucek has struck up a mini Czech corner in East London, after the pair both moved to the London Stadium from Slavia Prague within 10 months of one another in 2020.

“I’ll be asking him to tell me first where he’s going!” laughs Soucek. “It’ll be a big miss for me, and the club as well. It’ll be tough not to see him every day, but that’s football.”

The pair could still sign off on somewhat of a high if they can beat Nottm Forest and already-relegated Ipswich in their final two games to guarantee they finish ahead of Man Utd and Spurs, and potentially as high as 13th in the table.

Not only would it put a shine on a farewell to some of the club’s longest-serving players, with Lukasz Fabianski also set to depart this summer, but would lift the mood around the ground to tee up Potter’s first full season at the helm.

“It would make a big difference,” says Soucek. “We want to be higher in the table but we still have a couple of games so we can finish ahead of Man Utd and Tottenham.

“That’s a big goal for us, but also we want to finish the season in the best possible way after winning at Old Trafford. If we can get good results, we will all remember during the summer we can come back as strong as we finished.

“It’s so important to finish strongly.”

Find out whether West Ham can inspire that strong finish vs Nottm Forest, live on Super Sunday from 1pm on Sunday, kick-off 2.15pm.