As I sit and write this blog at 9pm on Friday night I find myself with a sort of boyish Christmas Eve type excitement. I know that I should probably be be a bit more downbeat following the drubbing at Anfield but I’m actually quite excited.
The thought of sharing a few drinks and discussing the Hammers news with my friends before heading into the ground is something I’ve missed. The World Cup was decent enough and I certainly feel like a break from West Ham was necessary following last seasons awful showing, but there is something special about a Saturday 3pm home fixture.
Yes our defending was terrible against Liverpool and we could barely muster an attack in response but I’ll still get that tingling of anticipation as I approach the turnstiles. I didn’t travel to Liverpool for the first game (lucky me) and although I did catch the pre-season friendly a Wycombe I’m eager to see Pellegrini’s team in action.
I’d expect Anderson, Yarmolenko, Fredricks and Wilshere to start and I’m quite sure that our new manager is savvy enough to have corrected much of was was wrong a week ago. Make no mistake about it, Eddie Howe will use Liverpool’s destruction of our back-line as a blueprint against us. However Bournemouth are no Liverpool and we are not going to be restricted to only two efforts on goal in this match.
With that in mind I expect to see much more from our attacking players against Bournemouth and certainly a goal or two so I’ll be traveling up with a spring in my step.
Forget last Saturday, our season starts here and we should begin to see Mr Pellegrini’s stamp on the team and his modus operandi has always been to attack.
So I’ll dust off my train pass, repeatedly click ‘refresh’ on my phone at 2pm for team news, have a burger, knock back a drink and bounce into that stadium ready for a chorus of Bubbles and hopefully something resembling the West Ham Way.
COYI
I think there will be more than double session until we get the system down COYI !!!
What is it with people on here, Fredericks starting, I will tell you this if he starts we have the wrong man in charge. He would have learned nothing from last weekend’s game. I have never rated him. As a 2 in a back 4 you have to be able to defend, he is not able to. People say give him a couple of games, he will learn. At 25 if he has not the basics of defending then he will never have it. A prime example it is not his natural instinct to cover his CB, it is not his natural instinct to close down the winger. If he starts Fraser will be man of the match. I saw Fredericks in preseason and he was so bad I just thought he was taking it easy but last weekend just confirmed how bad he really is. I loved Eddie Howe together, a really clever manager, he was building Wilshere up to ensure he starts as he knows his limitations. I am nervously excited and my only wish is that Pelle picks the correct team tomorrow and if he does we have a decent chance of winning the game. If he makes the same decisions as last weekend we will lose. If he does I believe we need to give Moyes a call sooner rather than later.
So important to get all 3 points tomorrow and put in a good display otherwise you can almost hear the knives being sharpened already.
Yep
Just can’t believe some of our fans. So Johnham, after two competitive games in charge, you wish to replace a Premier and foreign championship winning manager with David Moyes. The same David Moyes who has never won anything as a top level manager? Rather than wait and give MP and all our new players time to bed in and get used to our new system of playing you’d rather go back to the anti-football and boring grinding out of games that we have suffered previously under various managers. FFS man, get a grip and listen to yourself.
Yep .
It’s not a must win game parse. But it is a very important game which we can’t really afford to lose if the new squad and Pellegrini are to win credibility . There is in my opinion far too much talk of waiting to “ gel “ which of course will take time for sure . But after six games the cementing should be a done thing . We dare’nt Let it go any longer because Christmas is far closer than you think . It catches us up all too quickly and stealthily . I’m sure the Club is fully aware of that though . If our defensive play and holding midfield are on the ball I can see us running out 2 nil winners .
COYHAMMERS