The West Ham United bench will have a very different look to it today out of necessity. Loss of discipline in previous games means Edson Alvarez is serving a suspension following his two yellow cards received in a spate of brainlessness against Nottingham Forest: Mohammed Kudus received his five -match ban for the slappy-kicky-hissy fit against Spurs.
What that means is that hitherto ‘forgotten’, academy or fringe players can now be promoted to take up spots on the bench and will be one decision away from having their chance to shine.
Hammers youngster centre-back Kaelan Casey – just 20 years old, will surely be first in line should either centre-back selected to start today need changing during the game if the rumoured absence of Jean-Clair Todibo through injury proves correct.
In Alvarez’ absence, Kaelan Casey is West Ham’s likely reserve centre back
As discussed last week, Lewis Orford can make the bench today thanks to the absence of Alvarez and the pretty woeful form of the Rodriguez-Soler-Paquetá trio. Energy and pace on tap compared with our cumbersome, yellow cards in waiting option. How exciting would it be to see an Orford cameo at home today?
Finally Luis Guilherme (pictured) must be on the bench today: Jarrod Bowen’s rumoured injury scare means Julen Lopetegui would do well to rest him for part of the afternoon: Forgetting the politics and ‘who brought Guilherme’ to the Irons, the Brazilian winger is up there with the top ten fastest in the PL, runs timed at 36.5 km/h being enough to scare the best defences in the Premier League let alone an ageing Ashley Young at full back.
Much to look out for, plenty to appreciate then – any one of these young Hammers could be in line for a memorable afternoon and a career – defining performance.
I wonder if some people think the past 10 games were just some temporary aberration on Lopetegui’s part and that suddenly he is going to snap out of it and become the manager everyone wished for? Not so. What you have seen is what he is and what you are going to get. He is NOT what West Ham needs, and he needs to go now, no matter what the results are. He is past the point of no return and anything else is just putting off the inevitable.
It won’t make any difference if we win or lose that idiot JL will still be manager tomorrow why because we have a idiot called Sullivan in charge of the decisions who is to obstinate to admit that he was suckered by JL into believing he was the man to take us to the next level and all he has done is for us to go backwards and look like a bunch of amateurs on the pitch if things don’t change then we will be fighting relegation for the rest of the season
I fear that if we win today then it will be more due to Everton being poor than due to any vast improvements from us. I hope we do win but I do not want that to provide any stays of execution.
Problem we have though is even if we get rid of him, it will still be the same person picking the next manager who picked this one. Doesn’t fill me with hope in all honesty.
As always it will simply be the person he thinks is the safest cheap option to appoint.
After the Man Utd performance not result, I said we needed to build and get 4 points again Forest and Everton.
I had hoped we would try and nick a point against Forest due to them securing more point’s away than at home prior to playing us.
We need a win today and a performance!