West Ham will lock horns against Fulham in the Premier League for the first time in nearly five years when the two sides meet at Craven Cottage this weekend. The last meeting between the two sides, on New Year’s day in the 2013/14 season, went 2-1 in favour of the Cottagers.

Manuel Pellegrini has announced that Jack Wishere will again miss out owing to injury and that Lucas Perez, who was subbed off at half time against Palace, is also doubtful.

If Perez doesn’t recover in time, a lot will depend on Hernandez and Andy Carroll upfront. There’s also a chance fans may get to see young Xande Silva in action.

With the Hammers looking for their fourth league win in a row, let’s see what the pundits feel about their chances. [Read more…]

Fulham and West Ham will meet in the Premier League after a gap of nearly five years when they lock horns at Craven Cottage on Saturday afternoon. The Hammers will be aiming to make it four league wins in a row, while the struggling bottom of the table Cottagers will be looking to continue their recent improvement under new manager Claudio Ranieri.

For the last Premier League meeting between the two sides, one has to go all the way back to New Year’s Day in the 2013/14 season. The 25,335 strong crowd at Craven Cottage saw the home side come from behind to register a 2-1 win thanks to goals from Steve Sidwell and Dimitar Berbatov. West Ham had taken the lead through Mohamed Diame’s 7th minute (from a Jaaskelainen assist!), but suffered twin blows before the interval- with Mark Noble injured and having to be replaced by Razvan Rat, and Kevin Nolan getting himself sent off in the 44th minute.

Noble, who signed a contract extension till 2021 yesterday, is the only surviving Hammers player from the starting XI that day- Adrian was also in the squad, but an unused substitute. Fulham were coached by Rene Meulensteen, with Big Sam in charge of affairs at Upton Park.

After the game Allardyce criticised Nolan, who had seen red less than a month ago for his foul on Liverpool’s Jordan Henderson. [Read more…]

West Ham, as we all know, had a horror start to the 2018/19 Premier League season under new manager Manuel Pellegrini, losing their first four league games of the campaign. They were beaten 4-0 by Liverpool on the opening weekend, then went down 2-1 to Bournemouth at home, were impressive but lost to Unai Emery’s Arsenal at the Emirates, and finally conceded a late goal to Adama Traore as Wolves emerged 1-0 victors at the London Stadium.

Since then, Chilean gaffer Pellegrini has managed to turn things around a bit, even though the club have had their spells of inconsistency. Despite several first team members missing through injury (Lanzini, Arnautovic, Sanchez, Wilshere, Yarmolenko and Fredericks to name a few!), the Hammers have managed to come up with a three game winning streak ahead of this weekend’s fixture against Fulham. They’ve also always given a good account of themselves against the “big teams” this season- drawing against Chelsea, beating Man Utd, and narrowly losing to Spurs. They also had their chances against Man City, whom Pep Guardiola described as “lucky” to have beaten the Hammers.

We decided to take a look at the league table if it began in GW5, excluding the first four losses of the campaign. Some interesting findings! [Read more…]