Manuel Pellegrini has told reporters that Felipe Anderson, Sebastien Haller and Mark Noble are all doubts for West Ham’s away game against Brighton on Saturday.
Anderson picked up a small thigh injury during the Manchester City game but now faces a late fitness test to prove himself fit.
The news that Haller has a knock is fresh news but he also faces a late fitness test to prove he can play at the weekend.
Mark Noble is still suffering from a calf injury and is unlikely to play this week.
The manager said at his pre-match press conference “Mark Noble is recovering from his calf injury. I think that next week he will work with the team. Also we have some problems with Felipe Anderson and Sebastien Haller, they are trying to recover from the kicks they had in the last game .We will see tomorrow, we have some doubts.”
If Haller and Anderson are both unavailable this weekend then the Hammers will be missing out on £80m of talent as the players are the two record club signings. If Haller is not available it may open the door to new signing Albian Ajeti to come into the matchday squad.
Pellegrini did confirm that Jack Wilshere has recovered from his dead leg from the City defeat and is ready to play again this weekend.
The lack of quality in this squad will soon become apparent and one of the key points some of us were making preseason. We signed a striker but did not replace Arnie and as a consequence when we have injuries to one or two quality players we are in big trouble. And before anyone comes on here we were buying a striker whether Arnie stayed or not. Hugh, a general observation I like your website alot and most of your articles but the amount of air time you give to Wilshere compared to any other player is completely unwarranted. He will not be in the team this weekend if Pelle has anayzed the city game correctly. I would prefer to see young Coventry in the team instead of him.
To be fair John, I think you give far more attention to Jack Wilshere that C&H. And can you expand on not replacing Arnautovic please because I don’t understand, we had him playing as a striker, then we replaced him with a striker.
Dom my point exactly, if there was less reference to Wilshere then I would not be mentioning him, because he appears in discussion so much I comment. Anyway I have decided not to mention him again unless it’s positive. At the end of the summer Pelle said he was signing a top striker irrespective of whether Arnie stayed or not even though Arnie was playing as a striker. Then he signed Haller, we got a top striker and then we lose Arnie but he does not replace him with quality. By not replacing our best attacking player he has been a major mistake in my opinion as we dont have enough quality up top when we lose even one player. We needed another quality forward thats all I was saying.
Well if he said that, he’s followed through. He said he’d get a top striker (Haller) irrespective of whether Arnautovic leaves. He didn’t say, I’ll get a top striker and if Arnautovic goes, I’ll get two. In fact, we did get two, we got Ajeti who has an impressive scoring record in the Swiss league and who knows how he’ll do. Who knew Vardy would become such a top Premier League striker? Who thought Huiguin might score more or Hernandez for that matter?
Haller replaced Arnautovic and Ajeti replaced Perez. Carroll was mainly injured and completely toothless when he did play last season so it’s hard to argue that we’re worse off until we know how Haller and Ajeti adapt to the Premier League. Look at Man Utd, they sold Lukaku and didn’t get a replacement. Spurs rely heavily on Kane and haven’t got much in the way of backup. We are in a pretty good position compared to some others.
We all get it johnham1 you hate Wilshere you dont rate him you constantly bang on about change the record and then to have the cheek to suggest Hugh is obsessed with JW is so laughable.I never seen such a negative fan of any team in my life its a constant whinge.Even Mark Lawrenson is more positive about West Ham than you
How many times do we get little bits of news about players having knocks only for them to play..Any fantasy football player will tell you every team has a couple of players on the knocks list every week..Lets just put last weeks result behind us and support the team whichever 11 starts..
Smoke screen by Pelle, bet they both play.
Why why why..??!! Depressing news.