Vladimir Coufal was delighted to get another assist at the weekend, but he was “disappointed with the second-half” against Aston Villa.

Following a difficult campaign last season, Vladimir Coufal has been exceptional for West Ham this season. His defensive contributions have been vital to the Hammers’ success this season, and his attacking contributions even more so.

The 31-year-old secured his seventh assist this term against Aston Villa on Sunday with a brilliant cross on to the head of Michail Antonio. Despite having a brilliant game, Coufal admits he would have preferred to win over the assist. 

“I need to ask the manager to put me on set-pieces, to boost my numbers even more,” Coufal laughed when speaking to WHUFC.com. “I’m really enjoying my football at the moment, and it was nice to contribute to another goal this afternoon.”

“But I’d swap it for the three points, of course. In the end I think we played well in the first half, and left them not really knowing what to do, but we didn’t make the most of our chances and should have scored more. We’re disappointed with the second half. They dominated the ball and we didn’t create too many opportunities. We had a good shape for the most part, but we could have done better in attack. There was frustration at the end, but overall we’ll take the point.”

On three separate occasions the Irons thought they had got their second of the match just to be let down, with Antonio, Kudus and Soucek all having goals disallowed. The latter of which took a record breaking 5 minutes and 27 second VAR check to come to the final verdict. While it may have had a negative impact on the momentum of the closing stages of the game, Coufal is confident that it will not have an affect on the rest of their season. 

“The length of time we had to wait for VAR was quite difficult, because you’re on the pitch not really knowing what’s going on. We had some momentum at the end, but the break in play didn’t help that,” he confessed.

“But we’re on a decent run, and now we’ll go into the international break and try to come back strongly. We’re all excited about the quarter-final – Leverkusen are a great side with a great manager, and they have three Czech players, so we’ll give it our best and we’ll see what happens.”