West Ham have struggled a bit recently. With a loss to Southampton and a draw to Norwich, the Hammers have lost a few points and the morale in the squad may be low.
However, if there ever was a perfect game to bounce back Blackburn away in the FA cup would be the one. As it is West Ham’s last season at the Boleyn Ground the fans want a long journey in the most anticipated English cup tournament.
Firstly, Slaven informed the press about some injury news as stated on the official West Ham page. Carroll and Valencia’s possible unavailabilities may mean a full debut for Emmanuel Emenike and with the shortage of right back options, Michail Antonio may have to do another job in defence for Bilic.
Well, Andy Carroll is out and Enner Valencia also. Manuel Lanzini is back and Reidy should be OK for the Sunderland game. Diafra Sakho is hopefully going to start training with us on Monday or Tuesday. Joey O’Brien and James Tomkins are still out, with Sam Byram cup-tied, we are a little bit struggling with that position, but we are going to compensate that.
Bilic also addressed the goalkeeper situation and claimed when asked that Darren Randolph will play in goal. Randolph is only West Ham’s second keeper but has been on fire every time he’s stepped out onto the pitch as he restricted Liverpool to only one and stopped Wolves from scoring.
Every time Darren has played he has been fantastic for us. It is a great situation to be in that we have two fantastic goalkeepers to choose from. He was superb at Anfield, and again in the replay so I am confident in his ability.
Lastly, Bilic talked about how the game may be a little different than a usual Premier League game.
Blackburn are a huge club. When I was playing, they were massive, and that wasn’t ages ago. It’s a very difficult game for us. They are direct which is very dangerous so it’ll be a big test for us. They’re not having a great season in the league, but they haven’t conceded a lot so they are very solid. And 61% of their goals come from set pieces so that is a big threat.
