International Injury Forces Need For Lopetegui Plan ‘B’

These international games and West Ham. One of the pitfalls of recruiting very successful International soccer players is their propensity to get called up to play for their national teams and get injured along the way. It is part and parcel of modern high-mileage football. So many games, so much air travel: Hardly carbon neutral but also putting extra fatigue on the body.

Last time it was Edson Alvarez and a hamstring strain – this time our latest recruit Niclas Fullkrug suffered an unspecified calf/achillies issue which left him walking but leaving training with the German national side in advance of their game on Tuesday.

The 31 year old is now a big doubt for West Ham’s Premier League fixture against Fulham on Saturday – just a few days’ rest and hardly enough time to recover. What makes the situation more concerning for The Hammers is that Fullkrug’s competitor for the striker role this season is Mikel Antonio who will be playing in Honduras for Jamaica on Wednesday evening  – and remember by the time that game is finished at 10pm it will already be 5.00 Thursday morning in the UK – before Antonio undertakes a 14 hour flight to get back to UK probably arriving on Friday.

So he will be in no state to play in the Fulham game either.

That leaves Lopetegui with the option of starting Danny Ings or reverting to either Jarrod Bowen or Mohammed Kudus as a central striker. I know which option I’d prefer – but either way it is breaking new ground for West Ham this season.

As Fulham are not one of the ‘top six’ strongest sides you’d hope we would be set up reasonably offensively with three forwards behind Antonio normally: Cue Tomas Soucek at number 10 in front of three? Or Ings and Soucek together?

Anything except Ings as a lone striker: Surely Lopetegui has learned from his predecessor that Danny is not built for that role.

Either way, it looks as if our Head Coach is going to need to break new ground tactically to go and grab some goals at Fulham. We hope Niclas Fullkrug is back to 100% very soon: But maybe there is a ‘silver lining’ from this particular cloud?