Soucek happy with pre-season so far, despite defeat in France

Soucek cancelled out the French club’s early opener, with a well-taken header midway through the second half.

But Rennes struck twice more to claim a 3-1 win over David Moyes’ men after a physically demanding encounter.

And Soucek acknowledged the Europa Conference League winners still have work to do before their August 12 opener at Bournemouth.

“I am hopeful, in two weeks, when we start the league season, it will be easier to get the legs ready and we show more on the pitch because we will be fresher,” he told whufc.com.

“We had a really tough first few weeks of pre-season. We’ve run a lot and we’ve done a lot of work in the gym but that is normal for this time of year. It’s how it should be and, in this game, we still had quite heavy legs from the work we’ve been doing. 

“We need to do more sprints and quick movements, which will get the legs more used to those demands. I hope we can show that in our last pre-season match, in Germany against Bayer Leverkusen, and we translate it to our first Premier League game. That is the most important thing. 

“I like hard work. And, from all of the players, that’s how it should be. Especially when we get to do all it together and we’re doing the tough work, we have to take that spirit with us out onto the pitch. It’s important and everyone did really well when it comes to the work side. 

“Overall, I’m happy with pre-season so far. We just need to make sure our legs are fresh and we’re ready to go out and get results.”

Soucek and the rest of the Hammers who had been on international duty in June are only two weeks into their pre-season, with the entire senior squad only linking up a few days before the trip to France, after the tour of Australia.

Baptiste Santamaria’s long-range effort beat Alphonse Areola to open the scoring on Saturday and the hosts made nine changes during the second half.

And after Soucek’s leveller, Arnaud Kalimuendo restored the Rennes’ lead before Angelo Ogbonna’s late own goal completed the scoring.

But 28-year-old Soucek took the positives from the day, adding: “You want to play against the best teams and Stade Rennais are one of those.

“They finished fourth in their league and showed us they are a good side.

“We are happy we can play a pre-season game against these types of teams.

“We’re obviously not happy with the result but we got good minutes in our legs. It’s important for us to get into the right condition for the first game in the Premier League.

“I’m happy that many of us played 90 minutes and lots of us played 65-70 minutes. It’s important, but I also think we need to improve as well.”