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Ray Stewart hails new Hammers penalty king Declan

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Hammers defensive legend and ClaretandHugh’s exclusive blogger Ray ‘Tonka’ Stewart takes a look at tomorrow’s game in Manchester and comes to his conclusion on the outcome.

By Ray Stewart in conversation with Hugh Southon

I’m excited – genuinely excited by this West Ham team – which so far this season has been as good as my boys of ’86 and if I could go into a time machine and join them for the game at City I would not fear Man City at all.

Their confidence will be high – they are in the top four, have been on fire, there’s no room for any kind of apprehension.

And I’m just hoping we get another penalty from Declan Rice because the one he scored against Spurs was fantastic and that’s coming from the West Ham penalty king TONKA Stewart!

He struck it beautifully but the best bit was that he showed his leadership qualities by waving Jesse Lingard away before putting the shot away.

What was even better was Lingard’s response racing up to him and congratulating him and showing the spirit that exists in this team.

The older players will have been very respectful of Dec too after showing such brilliant leadership. This lad has everything it takes – he looks a complete player to me.

As for tomorrow I really do fancy us for a point. We are very good indeed defensively and at our best, counter-attack so well. A win would be brilliant but I can see us drawing if we are at our best.

I can see great similarities between my manager John Lyall and David Moyes whose man-management is superb.

He knows how to treat each individual player to get the best from them just as John did and as a result has the confidence and respect of the entire squad. Make no mistake we are going places under this man.

Tomorrow will be hard but this is the team I believe we will get us a result:

Fabianski, Couval, Diop, Dawson, Cresswell, Rice, Soucek, Bowen, Fornals, Lingard, Antonio

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Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!"

Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

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