Big line-up changes afoot for Pellegrini

West Ham boss Manuel Pellegrini is poised to make plenty of changes for tomorrow’s clash against Leicester City and Foxes boss Brendan Rodgers has promised to do the same.

With another game on New Year’s Day against Bournemouth at the London Stadium it begins to look as though nothing but six points is going to steer the Hammers away from their serious problems

The club were this afternoon being very secretive about any injuries and a potential starting line up and the first worry is whether the promised return of Lukasz Fabainski will become a reality

Ryan Fredericks looks certain to take over from Zaba at right back whilst we can expect to see Issa Diop teaming up with Angelo Ogbonna after the Paraguayan being turned inside out by Ayew for the Palace winner during a generally poor performance. That’s often the Pellegrini way after a less than average display.

Masuaku will be drafted in on the other side of the back line for the suspended Cresswell,Mark Noble at 32 can barely be expected to perform again and the same can be said for Snodgrass but how do you reshuffle the midfield.

Maybe we will see Fornals alongside Rice with Yarmolenko coming in for the Scotsman and Anderson returning behind Antonio and Haller.

Very much a possible CandH line up would be: Fabianski, Fredericks, Diop, Ogbonna, Masuaku; Fornals, Rice, Yarmolenko, Anderson, Antonio,  Haller.

Asked after the defeat by Liverpool – whether he would make changes the Foxes boss said: “Yes, just purely for the welfare of the players. It’s when you see we put so much into tonight physically and we have a massive January coming up for us as a squad and as a team.

“Normally, in a day where your body is recovering, I’m going to need to make those changes.”

“I think we’ll make a number of changes but there are also going to be guys that will want to play in every game. They will want to play in every single game, but of course, physically and mentally, it’s hard to do that, especially to play at the level that we want to.