West Ham (A) | Sun 7 Aug 16:30 | Pre-Match Thread

[Craig]

I don't know if that's true. He was the only one who I thought looked like they might score. My question is why on earth he went there. It must have been about living in London more than on-the-pitch reasons. Even we (who relative to the players know nothing about football) know that Chelsea are a dead end club for any good attacking players, so surely he must have seen that. Feels like him putting a premature end to his career.

Thought he played alright and looked sharp. Still did so many simple things wrong after good play though. The simple 10 yard passes that would lead to a good chance that used to infuriate me. Was watching last night thinking glad i won’t be getting wound up by that anymore!

 

[Gabriel]

I'm fully in agreement with you. And I'm not 'flapping' before everyone starts on me- I just think West Ham are a very good side and if we're being honest our recent history of starting seasons badly does not point to a good result today, away to a side that could conceivably get top six. They're a better team than Spurs were when we lost to them on opening day (with a much better manager to boot).

In recent visits there, they’ve been more than happy to retreat en masse to their own box and defend stoutly, and because they’ve done that relatively successfully against us, I don’t envisage their tactics changing. With our new attackers, to exploit their attributes best, we need to draw our opponent further up the park so it should be an interesting contest.

Another interesting thing to watch for today will be the intensity of the performance and the use of substitutes, especially on what could be an extremely hot day. If players have not had a proper pre-season, then the risk of injury is greater, and with a relatively smallish first-team squad available, then that is something of which we need to be mindful.

 

[Craig]

Drawn the last three games away to West Ham and wouldn’t be at all surprised if that pattern continues today. Moyes has them highly organised and we are still coming to terms with our new lines of attack, so we’ll need to take what chances fall our way.

Think we’ll win and the big man will bag a couple now it matters. The league cup draw we battered them but lacked a striker. In the league end of last season we had a very patched up defence and still should have won. Come on blues

 

[Wanchope n me Dickov]

Game kicks off at 330am in NZ do I’m gonna get up at 6 and watch it before work. Don’t tell me the score!

Leaning towards 1-1

 

[swintonjamie]

West Ham have tons of injuries. We should leather them today. Anything less than 3 points is a very poor result (especially following Liverpool’s draw yesterday).

Who is out for them?

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

I always go with the principle of match or improve last seasons results and we will be fine.

So a draw away at West Ham isn't the end of the world although I am expecting a win.

The dippers drawing at Fulham was a pleasent shock so a win today already puts us on the front foot.

Let's hope we learned our lessons from last seson when Bowen destroyed us (and Zinchenko) cutting in from our left side. That is where everyone targets us. I hope Pep has a plan otherwise it will be the same again. I wonder if Phillips will play alongside Rodri to keep an eye on that left hand side.

 

[Tricky_Trev]

West Ham have tons of injuries. We should leather them today. Anything less than 3 points is a very poor result (especially following Liverpool’s draw yesterday).

Who is out?

 

[Deleted member 77198]

Drawn the last three games away to West Ham and wouldn’t be at all surprised if that pattern continues today. Moyes has them highly organised and we are still coming to terms with our new lines of attack, so we’ll need to take what chances fall our way.

Our midfield and attack looked very disjointed last week. It seemed like nobody understood Haaland’s runs, and that could take one week to get used to or a month, nobody knows. West Ham are the best team outside the best 6, you could argue they’re the sixth best really. They’ve definitely got a better midfield than United.

I’d be happy with a draw today, ecstatic with a win.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

West Ham have tons of injuries. We should leather them today. Anything less than 3 points is a very poor result (especially following Liverpool’s draw yesterday).

Only Ogbonna (been injured through pre-season), Aguerd (ankle injury) and Scammaca (not injured, just had no pre-season) are out for them.

Everyone else is fit.

Below is the full list of players Moyes has to choose from to face Man City on Sunday afternoon.

Goalkeepers : Lukasz Fabianski, Alphonse Areola, Darren Randolph, Nathan Trott.

Defenders : Vladimir Coufal, Ben Johnson, Harrison Ashby, Kurt Zouma, Craig Dawson, Issa Diop, Jamal Baptiste, Aaron Cresswell.

Midfielders/wingers : Declan Rice, Tomas Soucek, Flynn Downes, Conor Coventry, Jarrod Bowen, Daniel Chesters, Manuel Lanzini, Nikola Vlasic, Pablo Fornals, Said Benrahma, Armstrong Oko-Flex.

Forwards : Michail Antonio, Divin Mubama.

 

[Gabriel]

Think we’ll win and the big man will bag a couple now it matters. The league cup draw we battered them but lacked a striker. In the league end of last season we had a very patched up defence and still should have won. Come on blues

In both of those games, I thought they coped rather comfortably with our attack and even the recent games in Manchester have been tighter affairs, certainly by West Ham standards of the last decade.

Much like the game against Villa, it was only when we ditched the ad nauseam passing and allowed a little chaos into the game that we prevailed. I think we’re still in the early days of a transition, so we’ll persist with a mixture of both styles for now, but scoring first today would be a huge help.