Irons boss Slaven Bilic is ready to risk West Ham’s place in the Europa League by fielding a second-string side against Astra Giurgiu on Thursday evening.
ClaretandHugh predicted a couple of days back that would be the case and The Daily Telegraph – notable for getting things right as far as the club is concerned – is echoing our view.
And with the Enner Valencia injury looking like it could sideline the striker for up to three months, Bilic isn’t ready to do anything other than play things safe on Thursday night.
According to The Telegraph, he has been disappointed at the reffing standards in Europe’s second tier competition and is reported to have the view that the competition could harm the club’s league season.
It says: “With the Arsenal fixture and injuries and red cards weighing heavily on his mind, Bilic is likely to rest a number of key players against Astra and largely rely on youngsters and fringe players.
“The move could anger a number of West Ham fans, who travelled out to Andorra and Malta to watch the team in the first and second qualifying rounds, and have booked trips to Romania.”
Meanwhile, the club has become confident of receiving the green light to sign forward Raul Jimenez in a move the club also hope will boost their bid to convince Javier Hernandez to move to Upton Park.
As we reported earlier, the Hammers have made Manchester United’s Mexican ace, Hernandez, their top striker target and believe the fact he is an international team-mate of Jimenez could work in their favour.
Oh well that will please half our fans who can be ‘over the moon’ if we get knocked out.They can celebrate with that fat **** Corden.
The fact that the Telegraph is reporting that Bilic is disappointed with the refereeing is hardly rocket science. Who wouldn’t be.
But we shouldn’t be so quick to assume we are throwing in the towel by letting a bunch of our youngsters have a go.
It gives them another chance to become the unexpected heroes with a permanent jump to the first team the prize.
Having everything to play for and little consequences if it doesn’t work is a great motivator
Nolan will captain the team ,in hopefully his last first team game, and under him we will not score
An absolute joke, what a disgraceful decision by the manager. Does he think he is Houdini – we will lose to Arsenal on Sunday. Here’s to going to work on Monday out of Europe and losing to Arsenal. Just can’t work out managers – play your strongest team in the Europa League. Play the right mix of youth and experience on Sunday. Everyone is happy.
And btw forget Hernandez, if we are spending this sort of money why did we not go for Dzeko – now there is a player that is worth his money. Hernandez is a waste of money.
John, you should have applied for the job.
Probably because Dzeko wants to play Champions League football,we wouldnt even be able to offer him europa league after thursday i doubt.
Having witnessed first hand some of the shocking refereeing in the Europa I fully understand. Maybe it’s a great day out for the travelling fans who go abroad but the gloss of this competition has come off for me, ruined by horrible little cheating, diving know all the tricks teams and then the ref. And then there’s sendings off and injuries.
The hope we start the same line up we did in the first Europa match minus the first team players.
Bilic is out of order : Europe is Massive for West Ham .. It’s our last chance to do something special before we say goodbye to the Old Lady . We should field our strongest team and to heck with the arsenal game , which is definitely loseable . If we go out of Europe with a whimper then Bilic will win some more critics .. We may beat Astra , but it should be with our best team . It’s too early to turn on our new manager , but he is not exactly rubbing up to the Fans , is he ! … Hope for our sake we don’t go out .
Think you will find he is doing exactly what half the fans want by not playing a strong team.Half the fans want our strongest team for sunday against the Arse.So he is playing ball as far as they are concerned.It shouldnt be about turning or not turning on Slaven.He is damned if he does & damned if he doesnt in this case.He cant win with 50% of the fans no matter what he does!
Seems a sensible decision to me. Speak of leaving UP on a high would not look too clever if we were playing Championship football. Sunday at the Emirates must result in the men in red getting a run for their money so a quality fresh squad is essential. The kids won’t make the bench, so let them thrive and grow in a meaningful competition. Everybody wins
The European games are a great opportunity for a lot of fans to visit the old ground for what could be the last time. A good run in Europe would be massive for us just as it is for the likes of Tottenham and Southampton. If we go out of this competition I will be gutted Who honestly thinks we will be fighting relegation at the cost of being in Europe? We still have most of the team that was 4th at Christmas plus we have made some top quality additions. Payet and ogbonna are world class. Payet will be as good for us as hazard is for Chelsea. And we are still to sign two or three top players including a new striker. I don’t know where the negativity comes from.
Play the youngsters, give them the responsibility of finding a way of dealing with a situation they will inevitably find themselves in further down the road in their careers. This will be a really interesting tie, Astra have to make a big decision on how to approach this game as its not cut and dried by any means. Do they sit back and look to expose us on the break or go for the jugular and put the tie to bed, either way, as we have seen so far in this competition the officials can change the direction of the result- it’s a double edged sword. So for everyone concerned for and against this competition, enjoy watching your team play on BT sport in a competitive match before the season starts and get behind the team!
@Sage, good commentary.
So we have to work back to back shifts,but our beloved over paid players can’t play 90 mins football then have 3 days rest and play another 90 mins,
All for as little as £7.00 per hour,
And we are only talking about 4/6 players at the most and 3 of them could have played half a game,
and don’t go bleating about air travel,people fly 12 hours get home and go to work 4 hours later and work 60 hours non stop,with people’s lives in there hands,
Why did they have to play in that stupid friendly Sunday oh of course Money
The travelling fans should get compensation for watching the second string,but they don’t want it because they are genuine people that would follow there club to hell,
Slav is doing as he is told he never made this decision by his self
Shame on you all
COYI
It’s all ifs and buts?? But the reality of it is, the decision has been made! If they get through billic is right? If they don’t he,s wrong,so what, but I think they will win.
Bubs, I agree that players “working” lives are no match for the rest of us who put in long shifts for not necessarily always good pay and spend our good money on expensive tickets/travel to the games. But that’s not going to change anytime soon. And football players are a commodity/asset to the businesses so they want to protect that as best as possible. Valencia being injured will cost a fortune to the club in medical bills, wages etc etc. Yep, that could have happened anytime, even in the league. But the fact is losing vital players for the season against lesser opposition before the season has started and with the window about to close, is something those with the heavy money invested want.
Bilic is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. However, a good result at Arsenal is possible and if that is pulled off could set us up for the whole season rather than going there saying we’re going to lose anyway (a mentality of the previous regime). The second string should still be good enough to beat this Romanian lot, and if they aren’t then we clearly don’t have as good a depth as we would like.
*should say those with the heavy money invested don’t want
*should say: those with the heavy money invested don’t want.
Chances are even with our best 11 (whatever that is) Slav does not know, we are going to get proper smashed at the Arsenal 3-1 / 4-1, and with 2 away goals Astra just have to score or draw, so therefore he is going to play it safe, managers with a thin average squad have to, and as for players playing 90 minutes both matches, don’t be so silly, that’s why we have a squad. so its the B team plus kids then our better 11 v AFC