West Ham starting XI; Lucasz Fabianski, Ben Johnson, Thilo Kehrer, Kurt Zouma, Aaron Cresswell, Declan Rice, Tomas Soucek, Jarrod Bowen, Flynn Downes, Said Benrahma, Gianluca Scamacca
Bournemouth starting XI; Neto, Ryan Fredericks, Lewis Cook, Chris Mepham, Jefferson Lerma, Dominic Solanke, Ryan Christie, Adam Smith, Marcus Tavernier, Marcos Senesi, Philip Billing
West Ham manager David Moyes said, “We are close to showing exactly what we can do”, as his side look to kick start their season after a stuttering side against Gary O’Neil’s Bournemouth.
West Ham head into this evenings fixture in 17th place after losing to Liverpool in midweek in a narrow 1-0 defeat at Anfield. Similar to their visitors who fell to a 1-0 home defeat to Southampton after going six games unbeaten ever since O’Neil took over from former boss Scott Parker.
Moyes is prepared for the challenge which Bournemouth will bring even without the likes of Paqueta and Maxwell Cornet who both miss out through injury. “Well, I think every game in the Premier League, doesn’t matter who you play, has the same level of difficulty. You try and do the same preparation for whoever you play it wouldn’t matter if it was Liverpool, Bournemouth or anybody else we would do the same.”
O’Neil remained calm when asked about his sides defeat to Southampton after going six games unbeaten prior, “You lose a game of football and it’s easy to see it as the end of the world, but I’ve been around the game long enough to know that if it was the end of the world every time I played poorly, it would have been half my games!”
West Ham under the lights at the London Stadium will be a tough test for the Cherries, however Bournemouth had been in fine form up in till midweek where they should have came away with at least a point due to their dominance. A tight contest and I think it’ll end 1-1.
Word count 222.
