Carlton Cole knows why Nuno's Tomas Soucek plan backfired on West Ham

Carlton Cole is in no doubt that Tomas Soucek will play a massive part in West Ham United’s promotion challenge under Nuno Espirito Santo.

But maybe not so soon after his return from a long-standing injury. Nuno opted to throw Soucek straight in for his first-ever Championship start when Queens Park Rangers made the short trip across the capital on Friday night.

As it transpired, Tomas Soucek would last only 45 minutes on his big comeback. West Ham United’s Conference League-winning fan favourite mustered the fewest touches of any starter at the London Stadium, replaced at the interval alongside Kyle Walker-Peters.

A disappointing evening would become even more galling when Soucek was adjudged to have fouled QPR forward Paul Smyth, Nicolas Madsen slotting a preposterous penalty beyond Mads Hermansen.

Speaking to talkSPORT after the Hammers missed the chance to leapfrog Swansea City at the summit, Carlton Cole is confident that better days are on the horizon for Soucek.

However, introducing an extra midfielder in favour of a striker in Joel Piroe succeeded only in leaving Taty Castellanos isolated and West Ham without one of their most potent finishers.

“When one of your senior players is back fit and he hasn’t played all season, you want to get him fit as soon as possible,” explains Cole, putting himself in Nuno’s shoes.

“What I think Nuno saw in the first-half of the Millwall game was [Arne Engels and Divine Mukasa came under] a lot of pressure. That wasn’t the midfield that I’ve seen previously.

“Probably Nuno saw Soucek coming back and thought, ‘I could bolster the midfield a little bit because he’s going to give us that steel for Mukasa to not worry about that side of the game, and Engels as well’. But sometimes that takes a lot from your attacking play.

“I think that’s where we kind of went a bit stale in the first half while getting used to the dynamics again. It took us 45 minutes to try and find that flow again, which is a sacrifice of where we were before.”

West Ham scored six times against Wrexham in their previous home match in the league, while the Piroe/Taty partnership was starting to show real signs of positivity. The challenge, from now on, is figuring out how Nuno can make the most of Soucek’s qualities while also ensuring that they rediscover the midfield and attacking balance of far-superior displays.

“Look, in the long run, I think Soucek’s going to be a massive asset for us,” adds Cole, who was West Ham’s starting striker when they won promotion via the play-offs in 2011/12.

“Once he gets going and gets fit, he’s going to score some important goals, and I think that’s what Nuno’s trying to work towards now.”