West Ham v Crystal Palace Preview

West Ham welcome Crystal Palace to the London Stadium this weekend. Palace coming in search of their first victory and West Ham looking to maintain their unbeaten run against the Eagles dating back to February 2015.

Funnily enough that last defeat was the first game I ever took my son to. I wanted him to at least attend a game at the old ground before our move. I knew it would be nigh on impossible to have gotten tickets in the final season, so I chose that game in the penultimate season.

We suffered a 3-1 defeat but at least he got to see Valencia score for us and got to celebrate a goal. Scott Dann and Glenn Murray (2) with the goals for Palace. Ever since, he has had a bit of a hatred for Palace and especially Mr Murray.

I have been to 3 Palace games, the above game, the Play Off Final 2004 & the game after Bilic announced Payet had gone on strike. That game will be remembered for Andy Carroll’s goal. It also was my son’s second ever game, so he enjoyed getting payback.

TEAM NEWS

No longer will I be making any comments about our short injury list following last weeks preview.

Although I’m still blaming Fabianski’s injury on anyone who read the preview and didn’t cross their fingers, touch wood or rub a rabbit’s foot as advised.

Fabianski now joins Antonio and Reid. I believe Reid should be back training and is expected to turn out for the U23’s in the near future, where no doubt he will pick up another injury.

Wilshere has overcome a slight muscle twinge and should be in the squad.

PREDICTED LINE UP

Roberto will take the place of Fabianski. Please God let him have a good performance. I will start going to Mass again if you perform this miracle.

Cresswell I would say will continue in the left back position following his goal scoring exploits. 2 goals in 2 games, it took him 102 games to score his 2 previous goals.

I can’t imagine anything else changing throughout the team therefore this is my predicted lineup:

The game on Saturday is being shown live on Sky Sports with a kick-off time of 5:30pm. I will have my ass planted on my seat for 5:25pm even though the show will start at 5pm. But as we all know the first 25 minutes they will talk about Man U, Liverpool and Man City before their 5 minutes of coverage on the actual game they are broadcasting!

I can’t see this being a 0-0 or 1-0 game with Roberto in nets, I would seriously doubt there will be a lack of goals. Hopefully we just score more than we concede!

It actually wouldn’t surprise me if this was a goal fest. We attack really well and are playing with confidence. Haller, Lanzini, Anderson & Yarmolenko are a joy to watch. Noble is Noble and Rice is World class.

The four at the back are solid at times and will need to be at their best.

Palace are coming off the back of a decent result against Norwich and have Zaha who always performs against us. We just need for Cresswell to ‘Julian Dicks’ him early in the game.

I’m really looking forward to the game, West Ham please do not disappoint me!

COYI!

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