West Ham have named a strong line up for tonight’s match against Aston Villa. It is a crucial game for us, Aston Villa have been poor this season but this is the type of game that we have slipped up in more often than we would have liked. Three points is much needed in the race for Europe and the team Slaven Bilic has selected should have enough talent to get the job done.
Adrian
Tomkins Collins Reid Cresswell
Kouyate Song Noble
Antonio Valencia Payet
Substitutes:
Randolph, Obiang, O’Brien, Moses, Jelavic, Oxford, Cullen
Team news
Randolph is back to the bench after his heroics against Liverpool at the weekend. Adrian was always going to return after the birth of his child, but Randolph has certainly done himself no harm by putting in a great performance and West Ham know they have a very capable back up.
Moses struggled after returning from injury. Antonio has been fantastic recently so no surprises to see him regain his place from the Chelsea loanee.
Payet out wide is the big mystery. By bringing Moses into the team instead of one of the midfield trio, Bilic could have released Dimitri Payet in his favourite position against a weak team. Aston Villa have struggled defensively this season, the last thing they would want to see is a roaming Payet picking up the ball in space in the middle. Instead, Bilic has played the three defensive midfielders that limit West Ham’s play and often leaves the attackers isolated when the ball gets to them.
Bilic hasn’t been wrong often, and when he is he usually changes it straight away. So he must know something that we don’t about why Payet continues to play wide.
It is a big game for Enner Valencia up top. He scored two good goals against Manchester City and needs to continue his goalscoring form against Aston Villa and really prove that he is can provide the goals that we need. If he can improve his chance conversion, then he could be very useful in that position this season.
No Emenike yet, but will be in contention for the weekend game. Would also be nice to get Reece Oxford some minutes after his loan move to Charlton fell through.
Let’s get behind the team and most importantly get the three points.
COYI
