We hope this is one of the easier ‘Lopetegui’ team predictions of the season. After the resounding 2-0 defeat of Newcastle United on Monday, West Ham welcome Arsenal in what could well have been ‘Lopetegui’s swansong’ were it not for the magnificent performance at St James’ Park last week.
Remember, here we try to guess -erm I mean ‘forecast’ – Lopetegui’s eleven. It is not necessarily the eleven we’d choose.
Barring injuries- and he did refer in his usual understated manner to ‘three little problems’ – we assume the starting eleven will be the same team who performed so well away from home. That would mean no place for Edson Alvarez on his return from suspension, neither for Mohammed Kudus who is on the last game of his 5 match ban. We wonder, tantalisingly, whether Niclas Fullkrug might make the bench as rumoured.
West Ham – Predicted starters
Fabianski | Wan Bissaka, Todibo, Kilman, Emerson | Soucek, Paquetá, Soler | Bowen (c) Antonio, Summerville
Score Prediction – Bullish after Monday night – a 1-1 would surprise the pundits and be a massive improvement on the 0-6 loss earlier this season under Moyes.
Last Game’s Prediction:
Our team V Newcastle
Areola | Wan-Bissaka, Todibo, Kilman, Emerson| Soucek, Rodriguez, Soler | Bowen, Antonio, Summerville |
Actual Line up:
Fabianski | Wan Bissaka, Todibo, Kilman, Emerson | Soucek, Paquetá, Soler | Bowen (c) Antonio, Summerville
2 wrong. Score prediction 100% wrong as I am very happy to admit I went with a 2-0 Newcastle victory.
Rice seems to think he’s so much better a player at Arsenal and that he’s learnt so much from Arteta. Let’s hope we prove him wrong.
Unchanged team.
This is a hard one to call, I don’t envy you the task Martin. It depends on which West Ham turn up, if the one that turned up against Everton then it could be a repeat of last season. If the one that turned up at St James’ Park then you could be right it could be 1-1.
I’m looking more at the performance in this game than the result, have we or have we not turned a corner ? Not long until we find out.