Unai Emery brings his Aston Villa side to the London stadium on Saturday August 17th.
Labelled the battle of the Espana giants, both managers have quite a strong managerial pedigree. Villa, are competing in the Champions league yet couldn’t emulate West Ham’s success in the Europa Conference losing in the semi finals last season.
Both clubs have been active in the transfer market, and with so many new faces on show many players will still be settling in to their new surroundings.
Record signing Amadou Onana, joined Villa from Everton for £50m. The Belgium international once linked to West Ham has bags of potential and will be a physical presence in midfield.
Enzo Barrachenea and Samuel Iling-Junior will also hope to get starting berths, having joined from Juventus.
Hammers fans will be interested in how the new centre-back partnership of Todibo and Kilman will work, and it’s likely that Wan-Bissaka will start ahead of Coufal. Up front all eyes will be on Fullkrug, including those of Duran who may be on the Villa bench wondering what could have been.
With James Ward Prowse seemingly out of favour in this new look side, it should not be forgotten that he was our primary play maker in the previous season, he created more than 43 chances from set pieces last season, more than any other premier league player.
Jarrod Bowen will be looking to emulate last season – he was directly involved in 22 goals in 34 Premier league games, and was our top scorer on 16 goals, 14 of these coming from open play.
Most bookies have West Ham at 6/4 to win this game, with Aston Villa at 7/4. Ollie Watkins fresh from his Euros adventure is 6/1 for first goalscorer.
With a new style of football and eight new signings, Lopetegui will need time to stamp his authority, yet backed by the board and some impressive transfer business by Tim Steidten, there is a lot of excitement going into the new season.
Our Spanish head coach favours the 4-2-3-1 system similar to Moyes, yet early indications are that his side will be more possession based. Under Moyes, West Ham averaged just 41.1% possession, during last seasons campaign.
Opta stats has predicted West Ham to finish tenth, which is one position lower than Moyes achieved before his departure. Data reaffirms a 55.6% probability of a top half finish, with a 20% implied probability of a top six finish.
The reality is that stats predictions are purely a forecast and with a contract focussed on European football the clubs aims are for a top six position. Lopetegui, signed a contract for two years yet if the Hammers qualify for European football in either of those two seasons his deal will automatically extend for a further year.
For those brave souls that enjoy an outside bet you can get 16/1 odds for a top four finish or 250/1 for the title -now that is nose bleed territory!
Bit of info for fans who get off at West Ham station and walk up the Greenway/sewerbank towards the stadium. From Monday 19th August Thames Water are working on the bridge before the pumping station and Greenway is going to be blocked off there for months. Should be ok for this Saturday though (fingers crossed!)
This is a VERY tough test. Villa are no mugs & were better than us last season; & they have strengthened their squad. So have we, of course, but we have made an awful lot of changes & the squad may take a bit of time to gel. It could go any way, but I am slightly pessimistic & see Villa just shading it.