Tomáš Souček says West Ham United have a week of hard work ahead of them – physically, mentally and tactically – to bounce back from Saturday’s 4-1 Premier League defeat at Tottenham Hotspur.
The Czech Republic international admitted to being ‘angry and frustrated’ after the Hammers took the lead before conceding an equaliser and ultimately being blown away by a three-goal salvo within eight second-half minutes leading up to the hour-mark.
Eight games into the top-flight season, the Irons have won just twice, kept only one clean sheet, lost four times and let in 15 goals – all statistics Souček and his teammates will not be happy with or proud of.
While it is still early in Head Coach Julen Lopetegui’s reign following the Spaniard’s summer appointment, the No28 knows the east Londoners need to improve their performances and output sooner rather than later if they are to enjoy another successful Premier League campaign.
The next opportunity to do that comes on Sunday 27 October, when Manchester United visit London Stadium, and Souček says Rush Green training ground will be a place of work and focus ahead of that game.
“It’s very frustrating, and we’re all angry,” he explained. “We said [in the dressing room] that this cannot happen because it’s a derby for us, for the fans, and it’s a massive game. We lost the game with a big difference in the scoreline, so we’re very sad. We also said this is only one result, and we have the whole week to overcome this setback and make sure we’re ready for the game against Manchester United next week.
“They made a substitution [at half-time, bringing on Pape Sarr for James Maddison], but we still wanted to play in the same way, and we knew that we created a few chances before half time and were also winning one-nil at one point. We went in with a draw at half time, but in the second half we were not good enough for an eight-minute spell and conceded three goals in that space of time. That killed the game. We spoke about mentality after the game and if we concede a goal that we can’t concede again like we did today.”
After thumping Ipswich Town 4-1 before the international break Souček and his teammates would have hoped to build on that performance in north London, especially after Kudus fired them in front.
Instead, they will need to rebuild confidence again after being roundly beaten by their near-neighbours, and particularly after conceding three goals so quickly, instead of showing resilience after falling behind.
He continued: “When we were losing 2-1, we wanted to get points from this game, but they were attacking us a lot and scored two more goals, which was very frustrating. We couldn’t manage it well, and, in the end, it was 4-1 because of the second half performance. We didn’t deserve any points today.
“The last game was perfect as we won 4-1 [against Ipswich Town], but we’ve come back from international duty and got smashed, so we have to keep balanced and make up for it at home. We have to replicate how we played in the last game [against Ipswich] and forget today. We have to be ready because this was a very bad day.”