by Staff Writer
Friday, 29th May 2026
Former West Ham assistant manager Nikola Jurcevic believes that it is imperative the club retains the services of two of it's most decorated players, if the club is to make an instant return to the Premier League.
Since West Ham were relegated on the final day of the season, despite downing Leeds 3-0 in Stratford, the squad's most valuable players have been linked with a summer move elsewhere.
Two of those players are club skipper Jarrod Bowen and Tomas Soucek, both of whom were part of the 2023 Europa Conference League-winning team.
And according to Jurcevic, who was Slaven Bilic's right-hand man during his stint as manager between 2015 and 2017, West Ham should do all they can to retain the services of both Bowen and the Czech midfielder.
"Both players have carried West Ham for years," Jurcevic told Flashscore. "You could say they're the symbol of this generation and it would be a shame if they left. The important thing is for the club to hold talks with them as soon as possible.
"It's important to keep the core of the team together. I think if they keep these players, who are the backbone of the team, they can go straight back to the Premier League. To me, they're definitely favourites to do it in their first season in the Championship."
And assessing the season just gone, the 59-year-old believes that while the team enjoyed a thoroughly productive second half of the campaign, they had simple left themselves too much to do - which is a common theme in east London.
"They had a disastrous first half of the league campaign and were in a pretty big points deficit," added Jurcevic. "It doesn't matter that they picked up enough points from January until the end of the season for a mid-table finish, it just wasn't enough because the other teams fighting for survival were also picking up points.
"What characterises West Ham, even in the years I was there, is that they don't have a run of success, a period of consistency. There's always a dip in form, a season where they are fighting for survival, and unfortunately, that's what happened this season.
"Something similar happened to us when we were there; we had a season where we beat Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United and finished fifth, but a year later we were in a relegation battle which we ultimately managed to overcome. That's that lack of continuity I was talking about, which still happens today."
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