Carlos Soler has had to be patient for his opportunities since signing from PSG in the summer.
The Spaniard has only started one game in claret and blue so far this season, which came in the Carabao Cup third round thrashing at the hands of Liverpool in September.
In the Premier League, he has been forced to settle for four cameos off the bench, with his longest spell on the pitch being the 45 minutes he had away at Brentford.
No one really expected him to arrive and become an instant regular in Julen Lopetegui‘s starting XI, but no one equally knew what exact role he would be in the squad to play whenever called upon.
West Ham’s midfield options are vast, with the likes of Tomas Soucek, Guido Rodriguez, Edson Alvarez and Lucas Paqueta all available, so Soler’s contribution to the team as a back up may just be what he’ll have to settle for at this time.
However, that might be exactly what makes Lopetegui’s West Ham side a lot stronger, according to West Ham tactical experts Jack Elderton and Cal Goodall.
The pair host The West Ham Breakdown podcast each week, where they dissect each performance from a tactical analysis viewpoint, and this week they touched on the impact Soler had on proceedings in the 4-1 victory over Ipswich Town at London Stadium.
The 27-year-old came on one minute after Paqueta tapped home the Hammers’ fourth and final goal of the afternoon and, according to Elderton and Goodall, his introduction was exactly what West Ham needed in that moment.
They said: “Soler was brilliant off the bench again.
“I just think this guy is very good and continues to impress. I thought he slowed us down, which we needed at that moment in the game.
“We were trying to counter every time we got the ball and he came on and went, ‘well, what’s the point, we’re 4-1 up? Why don’t we just have the ball instead?’
“So he just started taking the ball and passing it backwards, which was just the exact kind of intelligence that we needed on the pitch at that moment.
“So it was another impressive cameo from him.”
Soler is the perfect Paqueta back-up
And the analysts also noted that Soler can represent a really strong alternative to Paqueta’s role in this West Ham team, especially later in games when the Brazilian is getting tired or less effective.
They added: “It probably is to the benefit of the team as well.
“Because if you do play Paqueta out on that left wing, you have almost the like-for-like in Soler to bring off the bench if you want him to do the exact same stuff in terms of helping with combative play, creating those overloads, but also that out of possession counter pressing, which Paqueta is way more effective at in those wide areas.
“But Soler has shown that he can be as well.”
