IT'S A MUST WIN
West Ham United is a weird old game. Johnny on the podcast was asking me about whether there would be some PTSD there - on the West Ham side. I was taken aback, because my assumption is this game is never guaranteed and we have had some tough games against them over the years.
I also have personal issues with them. I grew up in a West Ham part of the country. My core memories have a bunch of guys running around saying ‘apples and pears’ ‘how’s yer luck’ and ‘happy days’ wearing Stone Island and pork pie hats. Julian Dicks fanboys certainly had a rougher time than me during our formative years, but now they have that big stadium, fancy branding, and big players like Paqueta… West Ham is a mainstay in the league and they should be a regular in Europe.
So where are they now? West Ham have a quality manager not doing very well (he rejected Bayern for them). They have some really good players underperforming. Last week, they beat Newcastle in an unexpected scalp that likely prolonged the tenure of Julen Lopetegui.
I’m not sure what I’m expecting for the away game today — the hope is their win was a blip, and our run of really explosive performances will continue with a MONSTER destruction this afternoon. Sadly, this is one of those games that I’d have listed down as a must-win. Liverpool have a really easy game against a battered City, so it’s imperative we put three points on the board to stop their 9-point lead getting out of control.
Rotation will be on the mind of Arteta. We have a huge game against United on Wednesday. They have a new manager trying new things, so we’ll need to be at our best to control the outcome of that. The challenge will be: how do we ensure fresh legs across both games?
Arteta spoke about Raheem Sterling and the intention that he’ll be part of the run of games in December. It’s important he starts to show up when he’s given minutes because Bukayo can’t play them all, and it really would be additive to have an output merchant as an option when hunting down teams. Sterling isn’t some washed-up 34-year-old; he’s not even 30. There’s plenty he can offer in terms of composure, leadership, and bang-bang winnertivity.
The midfield make-up is also going to be interesting. Partey will break if he’s not treated with kid gloves, so one would assume we’ll see more rotation between Merino, Jorgi, Declan, and Thomas. Think we’ve all but given up on anyone helping out with Odegaard’s role. That man has to play them all, which is a risk when returning from injury.
Defence — there are questions over whether Big Gabi will be available. Have no idea here, but we have the opp to bring Calafiori into the middle, which is a big upgrade on the options we had last year. The questions then become whether Zinchenko comes into the mixer or we give the choice to Kiwior, who was absolutely ROASTED by Gyokeres last week.
Upfront, we have plenty of options, and everyone seems to be playing well, even dearest Gabi Jesus.
Short post today — I’ll put the On The Whistle Post up a little later, and hopefully, you can join us LIVE for it by signing up. If you want to subscribe to the site, there are some nice offers going on right now.
P.S. There will be a big New York related announcement on the podcast later.
P.P.S. Alex Isak went off injured. He’ll likely miss the Liverpool game. How much luck can one team get? It is outrageous.
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