Its only October, two months into the Premier League season and yet some media joker has already christened the match between Erik Ten Hag’s Manchester United and Julen Lopetegui’s West Ham teams as ‘El Sackio’ with the inference being that the loser will be handed a p45 and be on his way out of the door of the club straight after.
I think that is a bit previous in Lopetegui’s case but for Ten Hag – who knows, Football Club owners demand success even after two trophies in two seasons.
So – whether it is indeed p45 time, it is no doubt a crucial game for Lopetegui and West Ham to try and regroup after last weekend’s dreadful drubbing at Spurs.
The West Ham media department have shared their customary video on whufc.com: Strategy, clues as to likely line-ups and training emphasis are all there to be previewed ahead of the Sunday afternoon match.
The main worry from watching the clip is that three players (apart from the stricken Fullkrug) are absent from the whole six minutes of video, Jarrod Bowen, Jean Clair Todibo and Tomas Soucek all missing from training with the main squad.
Bowen was missing from the last video pre-Tottenham so I wouldn’t want to jump to conclusions that the Hammers will be without their talismanic skipper on top of Mohammed Kudus’ ban: But it is worrying to see three integral members of the team missing just three days ahead of the game.
We will see what we can find out about the fitness of the three – but could be big worries on the horizon for Lopetegui and Hammers fans.
West Ham would be hugely weakened without the trio – although Bowen of course the biggest ‘miss’, Todibo’s absence would allow Konstantionos Mavropanos an opportunity: Souckek if absent would mean that under-fire Rodriguez would have to go again in midfield. And without Bowen – we’d be pretty impotent going forwards. Hopefully the trio appear on the team sheet come Sunday.
One to watch.
