Tomas Soucek believes the appointment of Graham Potter is already paying off massively after a positive draw against Aston Villa at the weekend. 

The Czechia International was one of very few shining lights under Julen Lopetegui and he has continued that form under the new regime. Soucek has captained the side in all four matches under Graham Potter with club captain Jarrod Bowen on the sidelines.

While the results may not exactly highlight much change in form, the performances, barring the defeat to Crystal Palace have shown a lot more heart, character and discipline than any match under Lopetegui. The squad has also been hit with an injury crisis with the attack completely decimated and Potter has also had to put out a make-shift defence on a couple of occasions.

Despite those problems, West Ham have managed to really impress at times and Tomas Soucek has noticed this improvement when he spoke after the 1-1 draw at Villa  Park.

“This is the most important thing that I love, not to have two strikers who score 30 goals, but to be as one team who can defend and attack and score the goals, so this is what makes the team special, and I think we did it great,” the No28 told West Ham TV.

“I would say this is the best performance under the new [Head Coach]. We can see [what he wants to do] at the training ground as his message is very clear how he wants to keep the ball and press the opponent.”

It wasn’t a great performance for the whole 90 minutes, however. the way the team managed to turn it round after a poor start to the game was something that never would’ve happened with Lopetegui in charge.

Soucek said: “If I put maybe the first 15 or 20 minutes out of the game, that would have been the perfect game for us because we were everywhere as a team, we fought for every ball and this is the West Ham we really need,” the stand-in captain continued. “We need this determination and especially in the last 20 or 30 minutes we deserved to be the winning team.

“It was great the way we responded because it’s always difficult when the team is losing. We came into the second half and we kept believing and creating chances and we even missed a few chances and had a disallowed goal, so I’m so proud of the team and how we managed the game.”