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Dec: “The mood is very good and we are ready”

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With the line up still a tad uncertain and the possibility of Pablo Fornals being sidelined the Hammers will need a different type of game against Arsenal this afternoon to the one they played at Old Trafford last weekend.

Declan Rice will hopefully be in charge of the armband again with Tomas Soucek alongside and with Aneglo Ogbonna definitely missing at the back, Issa Diop is lined up to continue his impressive run since getting his chance.

Beyond that the only change is likely to be either Said Benrahma or Manu Lanzini in a team that really needs to go for it against th3e 10th placed Gooners.

Declan is totally confident they will be doing exactly that as they once again bid to confirm their European credentials.

It’s another huge must win match but how great that for once in our lives it’s at this end of the table rather than the other at this time of the year.

Discussing the game at www.whufc.com Dec said: “The mood is good, it’s very good, we’re calm, we’re relaxed and we’re ready.

Arsenal have hit a good bit of form and we lost our last game 1-0 at Manchester United with a disappointing performance, but we’re ready to go, we’re at home and it’s a London derby, so we’re ready to go out there and give it everything we’ve got.

“It’s a massive game. Arsenal are seven points behind us and if they win then the gap goes to four and everything really starts to tighten up, so we really want to push on.”

Last season we lost 1-3 in the same fixture and Declan added: “We were 1-0 up and could have killed the game off as we had a couple of great chances, then they managed to turn the game around in the last 20 or 25 minutes and scored three.

“That’s football – if you don’t take your chances, the other team will always have a couple and they took them and managed to turn the game on its head, so we need to be resilient, strong, hopefully get off to a good start and build on that.”

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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