“I really miss him because he has been so supportive to me and has been my best friend since I arrived at the Club, and I’ve almost played every minute with him, and now I realise I won’t play with him for a while. I’m so happy he had a smile on his face, and I look forward to visiting him, and I’m sure he will come to the training ground and be with us because he’s one of us. He always puts everything in on the pitch, and I really love him.”
Over the last few weeks, Souček admits he and his West Ham team-mates have felt the pressure to start picking up results, but he says the art of coping with pressure is to use it as motivation – and that’s exactly what they did after revealing the squad had a video call with Antonio, who is recovering in a central London hospital, prior to kick-off.
“We spoke with him around 30 minutes or an hour before the game, and we were all so happy to see him, and it gave us all a smile on our faces and made some jokes,” said Souček.
“Every win is so important, but this one is even more important because we’ve felt a lot of pressure from almost everywhere - the fans, the media, and although we’ve tried to get rid of it, we’ve still felt it. We tried to give our maximum effort, intensity, and desire, and we did great and managed to win after a great performance at home. I think this will help us a lot, and we need to build on this performance.