West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini will give his lunchtime pre-match press conference at Rush Green tomorrow (Wednesday) with an update to the media on team news after ten days with no football. He is likely to say Manuel Lanzini, Marko Arnautovic and Fabian Balbuena could all be available for selection this Friday after coming through warm weather training in Spain.
Despite some media reports today suggesting both Jack Wilshere and Samir Nasri would be available for selection, Jack Wilshere remains injured while Nasri has trained all week but is unlikely to start.
Ryan Fredericks is likely to get the nod ahead of Pablo Zabaleta with a dead give away when the defender appears on the club website saying he can’t wait to face Fulham.
With all that in mind as it stands the team almost picks itself, assuming it is too early for Lanzini or Balbuena to start the Pellegrini’s team for Fulham could look this this:
Fabianski, Fredericks, Ogbonna, Diop, Cresswell, Rice, Noble, Snodgrass, Anderson, Antonio, Arnautovic
The players who appear on the official website talking about the upcoming game are often not playing come match day but instead are on the bench. I don’t know if that’s a coincidence or not but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Fredericks on the bench come Friday night.
I’d expect MP to give the ex-Fulham player the start against his old team….
Interesting that the line up suggested seems to have 4 winger/wide players up top…