West Ham manager Slaven Bilic says he will field a ‘strong’ side against Cheltenham Town tonight despite his side playing three games in the space of eight days.
The Hammers travel to Whaddon Road on the back of a 3-2 defeat to Southampton last weekend, and will have to travel away yet again to Newcastle this coming Saturday in the Premier League as they look to get off the bottom of the table.
Despite the busy schedule however, Bilic has insisted he will field a strong side against the League Two outfit in order to ensure the club’s progression through to the third round of the Carabao Cup.
“For tomorrow’s game, there are only a couple of players that we won’t take to travel. We have options and we want to give some a rest. We will see tomorrow which team we will put out but it will be a strong team because we want to win the game of course.” said Bilic speaking on whufc.com.
The Hammers were drawn against Cheltenham in the same competition back in 2013, coming out 2-1 victors thanks to goals from Ravel Morrison and Ricardo Vaz Te, and Bilic will be hoping his squad can pull off a similar result tonight.
“It’s not a big thing for others to play – it’s the beginning of the season. There is an international break after the Newcastle game, so it’s OK for them to play.
“Wednesday until Saturday is enough time to recover. If we make changes it’s because we have a good squad and can do that, although we will have a little bit of an eye on Newcastle but we will put a strong team out.”
