Tomas Soucek was delighted to provide West Ham fans with a festive win.

Although the three points is ultimately what matters, there’s no hiding the fact that West Ham had to scrape a lucky win against a team with just seven points this season. If Southampton took their chances, they wouldn’t have just beat our Irons but they would’ve done so comfortably.

Nonetheless, a win is a win and Tomas Soucek was happy to make it four games without defeat. “It’s a great feeling,” he told the official site. “I’m so happy that we got these three points, because we really needed that [to help us in the table].”

“It will be not easy for anyone here, even if they don’t have that many points. They are a really tough opponent – they could have scored against us as well, so we are happy that we got our fans a good Christmas gift.”

“It was a perfect action for the goal and I’m happy that I was involved in it as well,” he continued. “I headed back to the middle, [Niclas flicked on] and Jarrod scored an important goal.”

“It’s always the first goal that means a lot, and when we keep clinging to that, it’s another win.”

Unfortunately, the Czechia captain picked up his fifth yellow of the season, meaning he misses this weekend’s trip to Anfield. “I said four games ago that we will do our maximum to be unbeaten after the New Year, and now it’s only Liverpool left, so I hope that we do it. But it’s a shame for me I can’t play that game because of my yellow card.”

Pulling off a result at Liverpool isn’t something the Irons have done all that often. With the Reds in such fine form, and Lopetegui’s side playing how they are, it’s hard to imagine the unbeaten streak extending much further. Soucek will be a massive miss and the potential for there to be multiple players unavailable through injury could make it an even more daunting task.