It’s time to stop mucking around with this Iron’s game

By Hughie Southon

Tomas Soucek has to be handed back the role which saw him become Hammer of the Year in his first season at the club.

We are often told by managers that it takes a year for players to settle into clubs but that certainly wasn’t the case with the brilliant Czech.

Frankly, I saw him as the best signing this club has made in years in 20/21 and have been astonished to see him play a more defensive role this campaign.

Whilst Declan has been give the freedom to attack the brakes have been put on Tomas and it hasn’t worked.

The stats don’t lie and the 11 goals he scored last season showed, that apart from Declan, he was in a different class to most in the Premier League and was widely admired by many of them.

Some will want to argue that Declan has scored goals from his bursts forward – something Tomas doesn’t do. Rather he is a bit of a Martin peters stealing forward from the back – that’s his natural game.

Declan has managed just one Premier League goal yhis season against Villa, one against Kidderminster and two in the Euro League qualifiers.

We have seen Tomas getting forward more over recent games and as a result he scored a vital goal against Sevilla and has missed a couple of chances in others, possibly as a result of having to concentrate on the defensive role for so long this term.

We reported yesterday that he faces new contract talks in the summer and that being assured he will be restored to playing his natural game shares equal footing with a pay award.

That needs to be taken out of the talks right now by handing him back his most effective role – we really don’t have enough midfielders in the squad to muck around with one of one two best!

This was an indifferent tactical decision in my view and one that needs to be changed right away as we go into the last lap of a vital season.