Boss David Moyes has admitted he was wrong to change the Declan Rice and Tomas Soucek dynamic at West Ham as he looks for a solution.
The partnership of Rice and Soucek in the heart of midfield was regarded one of the best in the Premier League during West Ham’s rapid rise under Moyes.
But just a couple of months into last season – back in October 2021 – Hammers News noticed a very worrying change in the way Moyes was setting the team up.
Suddenly Rice, who had become the best defensive shield in the top flight bar none, was rampaging all over the pitch and bombing forward.
And it had an instant, negative impact on Soucek, who had bagged 10 goals for the Hammers the season before.
Moyes admitted after a 2-1 defeat at home to Brentford that Soucek was struggling to play his natural game due to Rice’s new role (Football.London).
Soucek has never recovered and has become something of a scapegoat for some West Ham supporters – even being unfathomably jeered off the pitch during one defeat.
There has been a clear disparity between how the new dynamic benefited West Ham and what it took away from Moyes’s side.
Rice had been West Ham’s key defensive anchor and his desire to push forward became a big issue. Particularly for Soucek.
Rice was – and still is – absolutely pivotal in that defensive role as he has the power, speed and mobility to do the work of two players in there. He was breaking the press and springing counter attacks like no other defensive midfielder in the Premier League.
Conversely Soucek is a good defensive midfielder. But his natural game is to be a box-to-box man. He picks up the ball, feeds it wide or forward and then continues his runs – often perfectly timed – to get up and support the attacks.
Previously you would see Soucek get two or three big chances per game. Now he’s lucky to get a game, let alone a chance when he does.
Soucek is nowhere near as good as Rice on the ball or the floor defensively. But he is streets ahead of his midfield teammate at the other end of the pitch.
Soucek was West Ham’s Hammer of the Year in the 2020-21 season for a reason. He was the team’s most important and influential player. As a fan if you couldn’t see that for yourself the stats were there to prove it.
He set a new top flight record for aerial duels won, a new top flight record for distance covered.
The man affectionately known as ‘Potatoe Salad’ stopped goodness knows how many goals with defensive headers and blocks, scored 10 Premier League goals and laid on one assist.
The Czech man mountain looked a threat at every single set piece and in almost every attack.
Soucek was also in the top 10 Premier League players statistically that season. Only Dimitri Payet, Scott Parker and Paolo Di Canio have managed that in West Ham’s Premier League history.
Since Moyes changed the dynamic and switched Rice to a box-to-box role, Soucek has looked castrated.
And it is no coincidence West Ham have struggled for over a year with just 14 wins in their last 47 Premier League matches.
Now boss Moyes has admitted he was wrong to change the Rice and Soucek dynamic as he looks for a West Ham solution.
“We’ve tried to get Declan forward up the pitch in the last year or two,” Moyes said ahead of the game against Newcastle (Football.London).
“Which in a way affected Tomas Soucek. Soucek, if you look the year before, got 10 goals arriving in the box.
“What we’ve done is with (Lucas) Paqueta coming in next to Dec, it means Dec has got to do more of a steady job because Lucas is a midfield player closer to being an attacking one than he is a defensive one. We’ve been trying to find ways of scoring goals.
“Sometimes we’ve said we won’t play Tomas to get a more attacking midfielder in alongside Declan. We’ve been tweaking that. We’ve got some results with it but I had brilliant results when I had Tomas and Declan alongside each other as well. But in the first half of the season we’ve not been able to find the goals.”
So Moyes has pointed out that Soucek scored 10 goals in the original setup and admitted that he has struggled since the change of system with Rice going forward.
The Scot also points out how brilliant West Ham’s result were in the original dynamic. So it begs some big questions: why did you change it? And why – when you could see it has not worked – did you stick with it? And why are you not doing everything possible to get Soucek back in those advanced roles again?
In fairness, at least the manager is being honest and holding his hands up. Now it’s up to him to fix it.
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