With just a couple of days till West Ham are back in action, a lot of our players have been busy over the international break. Let’s have a dive into it. 

We had nine first-team players go away on international duty all over the world, from the United Kingdom, to Europe, to South America, to Africa.

Tomas Soucek has had a crazy international break – not only did he play against two of the worst teams in Europe in San Marino and Gibraltar. The 30-year-old managed to score against both, but also lose his captaincy. The midfielder has been stripped of the captaincy for not going over to the fans and applauding them after beating Gibraltar 6-0.

This is out of character for Soucek, who loves the fans of both West Ham and Czechia. However, this isn’t a huge problem for him. He also netted twice, which makes it now four matches in a row he has scored. Soucek and us Hammers fans will be hoping to continue this form against Bournemouth on Saturday.

Lucas Paqueta‘s international break was far from good. The Brazilian didn’t start at the Emirates against Senegal, where the yellow and greens came out 2-0 victors. He came on with just seven minutes to go, so therefore was unable to impact the game.

The Brazilian didn’t start against Tunisia in France either. He came on after an hour, and this time he did impact the game, in a bad way. He had the chance to win the game for his country from the penalty spot, but he blazed it embarrassingly high and wide.

It might have to be Jarrod Bowen on penalty duty for the Hammers after seeing that one.

El Hadji Malick Diouf also didn’t start at the Emirates against Brazil; he came on just a few minutes before Lucas Paqueta, in fact. But unlike the Brazilian, Diouf had a huge impact on the next match. He started and got both a goal and an assist in their 8-0 win over Kenya. This is excellent news for the Hammers who will be getting a happy Diouf back.

Callum Marshall‘s selection in the Northern Ireland team still feels a bit pointless. I feel like he’d be better off staying in East London, proving himself, rather than getting a few minutes off the bench. He didn’t get off the bench despite losing to Slovakia, and he played just 23 minutes off the bench against Luxembourg.

A similar sentiment could be said for Andy Irving, the Scottish midfielder, who will be coming back buzzing after they beat Denmark to qualify for the FIFA World Cup officially. But he didn’t get off the bench in their 3-2 loss against Greece or their 4-2 win over Denmark. However, unlike Marshall, I don’t think many Hammers fans will be bothered, and neither will he, because they made it to the World Cup.

Jarrod Bowen didn’t feature for England in their 2-0 win over Serbia, but he started against Albania and was one of the better players in the team. But again, he didn’t really have a huge impact, and it’s started to raise the question, will he even make the World Cup squad?

Mads Hermansen also didn’t play for Denmark, but that’s unsurprising considering he is the third-choice keeper. Mateus Fernandes captained Portugal U21 in a 0-0 draw with the Czech Republic.

Aaron Wan-Bissaka and DR Congo secured their place in the World Cup play-offs with wins over Cameroon in the semi-final and an extraordinary win over Nigeria on penalties in the final. AWB started both matches. These wins have earned them a play-off game against either Jamaica or New Caledonia.

After almost two weeks off and yet another international break, it’s good to have club football back. We will have it back until March, as to many fans’ relief, there are no more breaks for international football till then.

A lot of players in the Hammers squad will have their minds on the World Cup in the summer, but they need to make sure they’re focused for the rest of the season, as we’re still under real threat of relegation, despite two wins in our last two.