Tomáš Souček was third time lucky as he struck West Ham United’s matchwinner in Sunday’s 3-2 Premier League victory over Nottingham Forest.
Having seen one shot hit the underside of the crossbar and a header saved by Forest goalkeeper Odysseas Vlachodimos as the Hammers sought a late winner, the giant Czech showed his aerial prowess, bravery and determination to get on the end of a cross yet again to power James Ward-Prowse’s corner into the bottom left-hand corner with two minutes to play.
Souček wheeled away, crossing his arms with a huge smile on his face before leaping high and punching the east London air in a mixture of elation and relief at not only scoring himself, but ending West Ham’s five-game winless Premier League run in the process.
For a player who has given everything for the cause since his arrival in January 2020, often at physical cost to himself, it was a special moment, and one he was naturally delighted to talk about when he spoke to West Ham TV after the game.
I am so happy that I could help the team with the winning goal.
We just needed to win this game and we won it so it showed. In the end, I think we deserved to win because we tried to win. I was so happy for the fans as they supported us for the whole 90 minutes. We won on Thursday and won on Sunday, so we now have 14 days to recover and get ready for the other games.
I was just happy to enjoy the moment and it’s great to celebrate.
This celebration had some meaning which my family knows about and it was also my third chance and I was also frustrated after the first two because I was so close, hitting the bar and then forcing a great save from their ‘keeper.
I was hoping that I could score still and get the winning goal. I believed and it happened, so it was nearly stoppage time and we did well in the end to get the three points!
One of the most passionate goal reactions you will ever see ❤️🔥 pic.twitter.com/q8Uh9LsfIR
— West Ham United (@WestHam) November 13, 2023
It’s true that James Ward-Prowse’s deliveries are special.
On the first day he came, everyone expected it and we said ‘Oh, come on, bro. Show us your quality’ and he did it from the first day, putting in great balls.
We know that we have great big lads in the box and with his delivery we have so many, many chances and even Jarrod [Bowen] scored too.
Many times we have scored from the set pieces and it's great when we can help get some big wins for us.
It feels very good to go into the November international break with a win.
We lost a few games and we just needed this win, playing at home and especially before the internationals because now it's 14 days off football.
It's great for us, for the fans and for everyone at West Ham and hopefully we can keep going in two weeks!
