With the Premier League season just hours away from kicking off, West Ham United manager Julen Lopetegui has confirmed that he has a fully fit squad, apart from an injury hit Edson Alvarez, to choose from for Saturday’s clash with Aston Villa.
The Hammers have a number of new signings to choose from and Lopetegui revealed in his pre-match press conference that he will make a late decision on which players will start the season opener.
“We have a full squad available for the game,” said Lopetegui. “We have no injuries. We have worked hard in pre-season and everyone is ready to play.
“It will be a difficult decision to make the starting XI, but we will choose the best team to win the game.”
Lopetegui has been busy in the transfer market this summer, bringing in eight new players. The likes of Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Max Kilman, Jean-Clair Todibo, and Niclas Fullkrug have all arrived at the London Stadium.
The Spaniard has admitted that it will take time for the new signings to gel together, but he is confident that his team can compete for a place in the top six this season.
“We have a lot of new players, but we are confident that we can compete,” said Lopetegui. “We have a good team spirit and we are ready for the challenge.”
The Irons will be looking to make a strong start to the season, and they will be hoping to get off to a winning start against Aston Villa.
Having a selection dilemma was last year where playing the same team on a Sunday as we had in Europe on the Thursday and half the players looked done twenty five minutes into the game. How many of those PL games did we lose? Hopefully with a bigger squad, and seemingly a more competitive one the manager is going to have this new ‘dilemma’ every week. And long may it last,
“How many of those PL games did we lose?”
I read somewhere, West Ham won just 2 of the 9 post-euro games. I could be wrong.
The one ‘hope’ I have is that Loopy includes substitutions/tactical changes going into the fixtures, specific to the opponents, meaning the starting line-up is for 60 odd minutes, and then ‘BAM!’ game-changing reinforcements, West Ham WIN! West Ham WIN! ⚒️ 😃
Couldn’t agree more!