West Ham’s injury crisis at central defence is set to be solved by Cheik Kouyate playing alongside James Collins against Arsenal tomorrow.
Injuries to Winston Reid and news that James Tomkins has suffered a dislocated shoulder has caused the manager a massive headache ahead of the game.
Doniel Henry – on loan at Blackburn Rovers – is understood to be locked in to 28 days with the club before release clauses can be triggered.
And with Carl Jenkinson barred from appearing against his parent club, it looks like that Joey O’Brien will be pushed into the right back role.
Enner Valencia is almost certain to miss the game with a wound caused by him stepping on broken crockery at home although Alex Song – despite carrying a troublesome knee problem – is almost certain to be told to get on with things.
With Carlton Cole also unavailable the likelihood is that Kevin Nolan will be pushed up alongside Diafra Sakho.
oh dear
What a mess, just goes to show we should have bought in January,
Why are we letting so many go out on loan with no recall clauses ?
Are these shortcomings the fault of Sam ?
Why can’t we sign this guy from Hamburg NOW ?
IS OUR CLUB CURSED ?
What is happening to our great Club ?
I dread to think what will happen tomorrow.
COYI
So basically, both Arsenal and Enner Valencia took a step towards the Cup this week?
ha! ha! they need someone to do the washing up.
What a week! Poor Hammers victims of a mugging!
Actually this is an opportunity for us to try something different and does indeed show what depth we now have in resources. Personally I have given up on Europe as a dream tis season so we might as well concentrate on playing attractive football and giving some of the fringe players a chance to prove themselves or ship them out in summer and continue to build and improve the squad.
The fact that we have Kouyate who can drop back and act as a central defender is a real bonus. It is a shame that we cannot recall Doneil Henry as I would like to see the lad given a chance. It sounds like he is really impressing at Blackburn.
I am excited about the possibility of seeing Nene up front with Sakho. It might give him the boost he needs to rediscover his scoring ability.
Got the chance with realistically nothing to play for to intergrate a couple of the youngsters into the first team setup or some game time.Oxford,Burke or others.Give them a taste of it.But im sure The Flexible Sophisticated One will not make use of this opportunity.Will be the likes of O’Brien back in.Would have been ideal for Henry to get involved as well but The Messiah deemed him unneeded for the first team,even though historically Reid,Collins & Tomkins are rarely all fit at the same time.Good move BFS!
Why O’Brien. Is Guy Demel injured – if not surely he would be first option. In August and January we all knew we needed another central defender and again none were forthcoming. We didn’t fulfil our 25 player allocation with only 23 and one of them was Doneil Henry who is out on loan.