Tomáš Souček has scored 31 goals in a West Ham United shirt, but none have been hit with the sweetness of his stunning winning strike at Everton.
The scores were locked at 1-1 heading into stoppage time of a frenetic encounter at Goodison Park, but among the chaos, time seemed to stand still as Souček brought down Mohammed Kudus’ cross to the right of Jordan Pickford’s goal, and picked a route through a mass of bodies with his swerving shot to find the top left corner.
The sight of the Goodison Park net rippling sent the 3,000 travelling fans into rapture – and earned Souček a booking for his celebration – and it was all worth it on a day to remember on Merseyside.
After Kurt Zouma cancelled out Beto’s opener, Edson Álvarez scored an even later third to wrap up a 3-1 victory and send Souček home with a broad smile on his face.
"It is one of the best goals I have scored. Hopefully the fans will vote for me in the Goal of the Month!” he laughed.
“I just wanted to shoot on target and there wasn’t a lot of space because Mykolenko was in front of me, so I wanted to go by him and it was a great goal.
"I enjoyed it with the fans. It’s probably the first yellow card I’ve had in my career for a celebration, but I knew it was the 90th minute and the winning goal, so I wanted to celebrate it with the fans."
Souček has scored a winning goal at Everton before - in the 2020/21 season en route to securing UEFA Europa League football - along with helping his side to another three points at the famous old venue the following year.
So he was delighted to make it a hat-trick of successes on Saturday - and gave huge credit to Alphonse Areola for the part he played, saving Beto's first-half penalty among the nine stops he made in total.
"It’s true, I said I wanted to make it a hat-trick of wins at Goodison Park and we did that, so that’s great!" he continued.
"Before the game, I said it would be a tough one, with lots of fighting for the first ball, the second ball, and it was like that.
"I have to say a lot about ‘Phonse, he saved us in many aspects, and then in the last ten minutes it was up and down [the pitch] and we were more lucky.
"I think with our attitude, we deserved to win."
Saturday’s success means the Hammers have recorded back-to-back wins for the first time since December, and with a host of important games to come in the weeks ahead, Souček is thrilled with the return to form.
Next up is Thursday’s trip to Germany to face SC Freiburg in the Europa League, with the Czech international calling for more of the same from his side.
"It was very important to win," he added. "We’ve said it many times that we [were going through] a tough time and we couldn’t find a way how to win.
"But now it’s two games and two wins in the Premier League and that’s always great because it’s so difficult to do it.
"Now we have four games until the international break, so we all look forward to the Europa League and we’ll go for it with the confidence, with the attitude we did today.
"Hopefully we’ll take it into the next game as well."
