Deportivo Hammer
25/12/2019

No game last weekend, due to our opponents having to play games elsewhere. One might think, after our crucial win against Southampton that we would be rested and ready to go in this London Derby. But in the life of a West Ham supporter it is rarely that straightforward. Tomorrow we face Crystal Palace who were very fortunate to take the 3 points earlier in the season at the London Stadium.

Palace have had an up and down season so far doing as well as any Palace fan can be expected. I’m not sure they have any aspirations of finishing anywhere other than mid-table and they will probably have achieved this aim this year as well. They are 12th in the table with 23 points so far, 4 more than West Ham at the moment. But as we all know 2 or 3 wins on the bounce in this league can change a teams fortunes very quickly.

After our closer than it should have been victory over Southampton we stand with 2 wins and 4 defeats from our last 6 games which tells us that we are either good or bad and hopefully the good will turn up for the game. But I do have some bad news for Hammers fans coming up.

Luckily Palace have quite a long injury list and will be without Dann, Ward, Shlupp, Cahill and Townsend for the game. It makes a change when the other team has an Injury as long or longer than ours. But the Hammers do have a problem in the goalkeeping department with Martin also getting a slight injury in our win away to Southampton. While both Martin and Fabianski are training with the first team it is unlikely that either will start against Palace.

That leaves us with Fan favourite Roberto back ready and in goal for West Ham. Wilshere misses out again but Lanzini should return to the bench at least for the game.

Predicted line ups :

Crystal Palace : Guaita, Van Aanholdt, Tavares, Tomkins, Kelly, Milivojevic, Kouyate, McArthur, Ayew, Zaha and Benteke.

West Ham United : Roberto, Zabaleta, Balbuena, Ogbonna, Cresswell, Noble, Rice, Snodgrass, Fornals, Antonio and Haller.

We really don’t have a great record on Boxing day, winning just once since we were last promoted. But after being convinced we were going to lose against Chelsea and Southampton and then winning, I’m going to predict another defeat in this game as well. 2-1 to Palace with Antonio getting back on target this time without using his hands.

I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas yesterday, and I wish you all a Happy New Year. Let’s hope West Ham come up with a couple of results in the next couple of weeks for us all to cheer.