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| Time to put the toys away lads! |
West Ham's preseason has been far from impressive with a series of embarrassing results out stateside followed by a thumping from Rubin Kazan. Things got even worse during a disastrous win over German second tier side Karlsruher CS in which defensive star Aaron Cresswell sustained a serious knee injury. As it stands, West Ham keep thumping on about a 50M striker, have bought two wide attacking players (Tore, Feghouli) but have no experienced full backs. Having conceded a whopping ten goals in five preseason fixtures, the Hammers need to tighten up their defence!
It will be fascinating to see how Bilic handles the full back crisis against Slovenian side NK Domzale tomorrow night. Despite Cressy's injury, Stephen Hendrie remains on loan at Blackburn which reflects poorly upon his progress to date, while Lewis Page, who has just turned 20, will be hoping to build on his experiences in last season's Europa League. Meanwhile, Sam Byram has been looking excellent in preseason and will hopefully prevent a return to the folly of playing Michail Antonio out of position at right back.
In midfield, it looks like it's game over for Diego Poyet who is not in the Europa League squad for the trip to Slovenia. With Obiang, Nordtveit, Cullen, etc all queuing up for berths it may be time for Diego to move elsewhere. Its a pity as its hard to see what he has done wrong when he's had the (rare) opportunity to shine. As for Josh Cullen, many are predicting that this season will see him push further up the ranks and into the first team proper. Tomorrow night should provide a platform for him to shine.
On the up side of things, Andy Carroll's latest injury scare seems behind him and he looks ready to get stuck into early season action alongside the impressive young Ashley Fletcher. words is that the pair took time out to share some quality time fishing whilst in Austria on preseason. I guess you could say that they are well perched to take their plaice at the top table.
Kick off is at 19:45 and its live on BT Sports....Here we go again!!!
