Good afternoon and welcome to our protection for West Ham towards Manchester United on the London Stadium. Each groups come into the sport in pretty combined kind. West Ham have been in superb latest kind earlier than their 5-1 Carabao Cup drubbing by the hands of Liverpool within the week, which has heaped extra stress on David Moyes from his crew’s fanbase.
Manchester United, in the meantime, have been in the kind of kind that has typified their standing during the last decade. Patchy and with none actual or sustained enchancment. Sure, their final sport towards Liverpool at Anfield was a good level, however that’s within the context of how poorly they’ve carried out towards their largest rivals within the final six or seven years. In any case, it should all be forgotten ought to they lose at the moment.
In the meantime Man Utd supervisor Erik ten Hag has advised his misfiring gamers they need to discover the options to finish their acute objective scarcity, reviews Richard Tanner.
The under-pressure United supervisor has confronted quite a few issues in an under-whelming season up to now however arguably the largest has been his crew’s lack of fireside energy.
They’ve managed solely 18 objectives in 17 Premier League video games this season – solely the underside 4 golf equipment have a worse file – and so they have scored 22 fewer than present prime scorers Manchester Metropolis.
Following their failure to seek out the online towards Bournemouth (3-0), Bayern Munich (1-0) and Liverpool (0-0), United arrive at West Ham seeking to keep away from a fourth consecutive clean for the primary time since October-November 1992.
“We all know we’ve to enhance – and we are able to positively enhance,” mentioned Ten Hag. “It’s not about one participant, it’s a couple of group of all of us. My philosophy is that we’ve to assault with 11.
“We have now to get the motion higher, decision-making on the ball must be higher and we’ve to be extra scientific – the most effective likelihood within the Liverpool sport was ours.”
Marcus Rashford, final season’s main scorer with 30 in all competitions, has scored solely twice, £70 million signing Rasmus Hojland remains to be trying to find his elusive first Premier League objective, Anthony Martial and Alesandro Garnacho have one apiece within the Premier League whereas Antony has drawn a clean.
It means midfielder Scott McTominay, who was not even within the staring line-up for the primary three months of the season, is United’s main League scorer with 5.
Ten Hag stays assured that the objectives will come from Rashford and Hojland particularly.
“I’m all the time very supportive of gamers and I do know, particularly entrance gamers, they want extra belief and assist from a supervisor,” he added. “I’ve a powerful perception in Hojlund and in Rashford that they’re able to scoring lots of objectives. Rashford, final yr beneath me, he proved he can rating many objectives when he’s at his finest.
“He’s coaching effectively. It might all the time be higher, however I believe he’s a really skilled participant and he is aware of how prime soccer works. He is aware of he has to take the duty and I’m certain he’ll try this and he’ll line up [end the drought] himself.
“I’ve an identical feeling and opinion about Hojlund, as a result of he has proven, on the highest stage, within the Champions League that he can rating objectives. His mentality is nice, he’s an excellent performer in stress, he offers with that.
“However it isn’t solely about Hojlund. We have now to work as a bunch, as a crew, on our attacking sport, however they’re able to scoring lots of objectives.”
Bruno Fernandes is again from suspension to face the Hammers however Diogo Dalot is banned after his purple card at Anfield. And Victor Lindelof has joined United’s prolonged damage checklist after having surgical procedure and faces two weeks out.