The Hammers are back on BT Sport West Ham v Astra Giurgiu Thursday 7.30pm
BT Sport 2 HD and 4K UHD
The Hammers welcome the Romanian champions to the London Stadium for the play-off round second leg on Thursday 25 August at 7.45pm – just over a year after being eliminated from the same tournament by the same opposition.With revenge in the air for Slaven Bilic after drawing 1-1 in the first leg in Romania the tie looks like it will sell out all 57,000 seats for Thursday for another record home attendance.
I thought it was on anyway.Or I assumed it would be.Carroll hat trick on the cards..oh no maybe not.I wonder when it will sink into the heads of the poor delusional Carroll backers that the man is just made of glass.Three years of the same situations but still all is good & he is going to be our main man.Its like listening to a bloody broken record.But lets throw in a few statistics about Payet,Lanzini & Sakho & it will make it all go away.
It’s simple Eddie.Some have blindly backed him for three years,told everyone who will listen how he will be the top dog that season,how he is now over his injuries,he will score 20 goals no probs & it all goes sh#t shaped,yet again.So bung some stats up about other players even though these players have been out over a third of the seasons the Leaping Salmon has.Three years of the same sh#t compared to one season of Payet or Lanzini.Sakho is a nightmare as well dont get me wrong but Lanzini & Payet has been one fecking season not 3.They just ain’t got the balls big enough to admit Carroll is a fecking car crash haha 😀
What are you talking about? What have Payet, Lanzini & Sakho’s stats got to do with (sicknote) Carroll? Grrrrh! He gets injured (maybe?)… and… and… grrrrh Lanzini…
No one thinks Carroll is anything other than a liability. Can he be reilied on? No. Is anyone relying on him? No. Enough said.
I dont know if Sean or Hugh can confirm or dig in to it but i have a mate works in the media who said Bilic is pig sick of Carrolls injuries & him being seen as the main striker at the club.He really wants other players he can rely on to be the main striker options.Carroll is on borrowed time from my understanding from my friend.
Well some were arguing in recent weeks how this was Carrolls first first injury free build up and hopes that he would have a relatively injury free campaign. I remember shaking my head then and can only double that now. Simple fact is once a player has ongoing injury problems of a similar nature over 3 or more years it is almost certain that they will continue to have those problems and most will find them worsening as they age.
The best you can hope for is a season free from serious issues but inevitably they return, as for example Van Persie and for us Stuart Robson who went from saying how a new training regime had given him freedom from injury (sound familiar?), to effective retirement some 18mths later.
The shame is I love watching Carroll in full flow but sometimes you have to face facts not just put your hands over your eyes & hope it will go away.Its a crazy situation when we as fans almost feel relief because it might ONLY be a 4 to 6 week lay off Its madness.
Big game on thurs, here is my lineup, Randolph, Burke, Oxford, Ogbanna,Byran, Obiang, Kouyate, Antonio, Payet, Tore, Calleri
Great team Johnham and I would go all the way with it,
Maybe Novedt as Payet won’t be playing,so Antonio on the right Tore on the left Calleri leading 3 across the middle
Back 4 the same as last week,
Fletcher as back up to Calleri Browne Samulsun Noble
Reid Adrien
Valencia in the mascots kit ( not to near the pitch )
Should be a sweet victory and bring loads of Euro football to us,
Think I’d rather see Adrian in goal tbh, think Payet has to play. I put more importance on this game than the City game at the weekend and I’m really F***ing nervous about it. If we bury Astra tomorrow, I think our problems signing a good striker may ease!
If I were Zaza, Bacca or anyone half decent, if want at the very least a run go at Europe… If we don’t get the job done in this game, that opportunity is gone and they’ll be looking elsewhere.
I think we have got to field the strongest team we can put together, even with a 15 page injury list! If Payet is fit, he’s got to play… I’d have Noble on the pitch, he seems to pull the team together…I don’t know who could lead better than him on the pitch.