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Hammers bench could be scarce

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The Hammers bench may be low on numbers on Sunday with Frederik Alves, Conor Coventry and Ademipo Odubeko all starting for the Under 23’s tonight at Rush Green alongside Arthur Masuaku and Andriy Yarmolenko.

With Darren Randolph, Ryan Fredericks and Pablo Fornals all likely to remain unavailable for the West Ham London Stadium bench could be a little scarce on Sunday against Arsenal.

The likely Sunday starting line-up will be Fabianksi, Coufal, Diop, Dawson, Cresswell, Soucek, Rice, Bowen, Lingard, Benrhama, Antonio.

And that means the bench almost selects itself with  Nathan Trott, David Martin, Manuel Lanzini, Fabian Balbuena, Mark Noble, Ryan Ferdericks and Ben Johnson which could leave us pretty short.

COVID rules insist that the senior and under 23 remain in separate bubbles so swapping players between squads involves testing and takes time.

Last week David Moyes said it was a tough balance between playing his Academy stars in the U23 games or getting them to sit on the senior bench as unused substitutes.

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I am Season Ticket Holder in West stand lower at the London Stadium and before that, I used to stand in the Sir Trevor Brooking Lower Row R seat 159 in the Boleyn Ground and in the Eighties I stood on the terraces of the old South Bank. I am a presenter on the West Ham Podcast called MooreThanJustaPodcast.co.uk. A Blogger on WestHamTillIdie.com a member of the West Ham Supporters Advisory Board (SAB), Founder of a Youtube channel called Mr West Ham Football at http://www.youtube.com/MrWestHamFootball,

I am also the associate editor here at Claret and Hugh.

Life Long singer of bubbles! Come on you Irons!

Follow me at @Westhamfootball on twitter