West Ham United face a must-win game when they host Middlesbrough in the Premier League today and Slaven Bilic will make wholesale changes.
West Ham United manager Slaven Bilic
A woeful start to the season and life at their new 60,000 Olympic Stadium home has left morale on the pitch and in the stands at a new low.
Five defeats from the first six Premier League games is the club’s worst ever start to a season and Bilic’s side were also unceremoniously dumped out of Europe in qualifying too.
Consecutive league defeats against Watford, West Bromwich Albion and Southampton saw the Hammers concede 11 goals.
They face newly-promoted Boro at the London Stadium knowing only a win will do going into the October international break.
And Bilic once again looks set to ring the changes due to a combination of injuries and poor form from the side which started against Southampton.
West Ham United’s Sam Byram
Byram in for Nordtveit
This is a change enforced by injury but one most Hammers fans will be delighted about after Havard Nordtveit’s awful form since signing for the club on a free transfer in the summer.
In the eyes of most West Ham fans young Sam Byram has done little wrong when he has played but Bilic insisted recently the former Leeds United man can only start when the team around him is playing well.
This weekend he has no choice after inexplicably allowing homegrown Hammer James Tomkins to leave for Crystal Palace in the summer.
Bilic will then either play Byram at left-back – where he deputised for Aaron Cresswell in the Europa League – or play him in his preferred position on the right side of the defence and leave the experienced Alvaro Arbeloa at left-back.
West Ham United’s Pedro Obiang
Obiang in for Lanzini
One that may raise a few eyebrows but a necessary evil on two fronts. Lanzini is believed to have picked up a knock leading to his withdrawal at half-time in the defeat to the Saints last time out.
But what has been clear in the last two months is that the Hammers have too many luxury players not putting the hard graft in as they did last season and Lanzini – as good as he is on the ball – is one of them.
Pedro Obiang has been used sparingly by Bilic in the last year but nearly everytime he plays, the classy midfielder impresses.
He put in a captain’s performance in the win over Accrington Stanley and will add more steel, a higher workrate and better all round passing to the Hammers midfield for such a crucial match with Lanzini available to come on and make an impact from the bench.
West Ham’s Ashley Fletcher has impressed
Fletcher in for Zaza
Simeone Zaza’s West Ham career looks set to be a short one. Already been linked with a return to Juventus after a poor start to his loan spell, the Italian striker is a man under pressure to prove his worth with the obligation to buy clause inserted into the deal for a whopping £25 million proving a weight around his and the club’s neck.
He has offered very little so far and doesn’t look even close to scoring with many fans comparing him to hapless former cult hero Carlton Cole.
Ashley Fletcher meanwhile has impressed whenever given the chance by Bilic and should come in to freshen up a Hammers attack desperately lacking in recent weeks.
Zaza works his socks off but in the Premier League you need a lot more than that.
Mark Noble
He should be he won’t
Finally Bilic should drop out of form skipper Mark Noble but as West Ham’s fan on the pitch, Noble knows what is at stake and will be played for that reason alone.
He could well be replaced by the impressive and all-action Edimilson Fernandes long-term but there is too much riding on the game to take what would be deemed a big risk in dropping your captain.
Winston Reid is another fortunate to still be in the side and given how precarious young prodigy Reece Oxford’s future looks given his lack of game time perhaps now he should get his big chance to prove his worth.
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