By Hughie Southon
West Ham duo Edson Alvarez and Mo Kudus have to be considered doubtful starters for the Irons at Villa this weekend as a result of the international break.
Alvarez may miss Villa
The match is being shown on Sky at 4.30 with ourselves in seventh place behind the midlanders who have a two point advantage over us.
However, Alvarez and Kudus could easily be on the bench given the times of their games this week.
Both face meaningless matches against Germany in a 1 am Wednesday kick off in Mexico and Ghana in another friendly against the USA in North America at 1.30 am GMT.
They face similar return journeys as Alvarez experienced in the last break when appearing back in the UK late on Thursday.
Kudus doubt
At the time, manager David Moyes said there was so little training time Alvarez may not make the game against Man City
In fact he did but was subbed before the end and has occasionally appeared tired towards the end of more recent games.
Kudus will be considered in the same light for this weekend’s game also which makes both of them doubtful to some extent.
However, both may have an extra day to train given it’s a Sunday kick off issue although that depends very much on their jet lag position.