Vladimír Coufal’s contract at West Ham United expires at the end of this season and he needs to sort out his future beyond this season.
The right-back was a regular for West Ham and played 47 games in all competitions last season.
MF DNES have published an interview with the 32-year-old, where he talks about his annoyance over his contract situation.
The newspaper claims West Ham had ‘promised’ to offer the Czech Republic international a new contract after his impressive performances last season.
Instead, the Premier League club used the option to exercise it for another year and it will expire in June. In addition to this, the London club strengthened the right-back position by signing Aaron Wan-Bissaka from Manchester United last summer.
Coufal didn’t hold back when making it clear that he deserved a new contract.
“I still regret that. Last season, I played the most minutes of all, and I also made seven assists. In the entire Premier League, only Kieran Trippier from Newcastle was better among defenders, who also takes set pieces,” he said.
“I say openly that I deserved to negotiate much better terms. The option was also supposed to be a new contract. That was the agreement.”
The former Slavia Prague man is likely to leave West Ham when his contract expires in the next three months. The Hammers defender was asked whether he would consider a move to Saudi Arabia.
When responding to that, he said he’s discussed this with his compatriot and West Ham teammate, Tomáš Souček.
“Suk and I were just discussing this recently. I would have provided for four more generations of Coufals, maybe even more, we don’t even have to talk about money,” Coufal explained.
“But in the back of my head it’s nagging at me: Would you want that? Would you want to lower your ambitions?
“That I would still want to be on par with the best, most skilled and fastest footballers in the world. I would like to continue to push them every day in training. To work with absolute passion and leave exhausted every time. Why? I don’t want to have any problems.”
