In an interview with talkSPORT, former West Ham defender Vladimir Coufal spoke about his exit from the club and the mess it’s in right now.

We’ve seen a lot of reports and quotes from Coufal since he left the Hammers. He was unhappy with the way he was treated at the end of his Hammers career, but this time we’ve heard it from the man himself via talkSPORT.

Vladimir had 6 months left on his Hammers contract this time last year and he wasn’t sure he was going to get a new one. So, when Fulham came in he was understandably interested in a move, the Cottagers were offering him a three year deal.

“Some decisions don’t make sense for you. For example, don’t let me go to Fulham.

“Obviously, I could stay in London with my family and everything. Stay in the Premier League, and then they could still get some decent money for me.

“Six months before the end of my contract, they decided to not let me go without any reward. And then, in two months or three months, they announced to me that they would not extend my contract.

“So it was the decision I didn’t get. But, yeah, it’s a part of life, part of football. Football brings you some strange decisions, weird decisions. But you have to deal with that and still keep pushing and be positive.”

Coufal also spoke on how it affected his family, his son didn’t talk to him for a couple of weeks. His son had just signed for the Hammers academy and days later found out he had to leave.

Coufal made the switch to Hoffenheim on a free transfer, where he is excelling, they are currently third in the Bundesliga table below it’s Bayern and Dortmund. His son is now in the Slavia Prague academy.

While Coufal wanted to stay, “It was really difficult for me,” he added. “I’m still not beyond this decision. I still feel a bit, not betrayed, but disappointed.

Because I still think that I could bring something to West Ham. And obviously, for my family and for everyone, it was a really, really tough decision. I said it many times already. And yeah, very, very tough.”

The Czech international has done a lot better out of it. He’s on fire in the Bundesliga while the Hammers look set to be relegated.

West Ham could really go with Coufal right now, not only his character and leadership, we also could’ve done with Coufal while Wan-Bissaka and Diouf were away at AFCON. To just replace Coufal and Cresswell with just Walker-Peter’s was a silly decision.

Coufal also gave his reserved opinions on the clubs situation with potential relegation and board problems.

He was asked about the lack of atmosphere at the ground and he mentioned the Sevilla and Leverkusen games, saying the stadium can be good, but we haven’t got much to cheer about at the moment.

“One regret in my West Ham career was that I never played at Upton Park. From what Nobes (Mark Noble) and Cressy (Aaron Cresswell) told me, the atmosphere was unbelievable and teams were really scared to come there.”

Coufal reminiscing about Upton Park is really rubbing it in for West Ham fans. If you think Hammers fans miss Coufal, you can’t even begin to understand how much the majority of us miss the Boleyn Ground and the ‘old’ West Ham