We return to the Saturday cycle with six Premier League matches spanning our next seven hours. It all starts at Upton Park for the crunchiest of crunch matches as Big Sam’s West Ham host managerless West Brom in a bid to halt their alarmingly slide over the relegation trapdoor.
Let’s be honest, we’re not expecting fireworks and very few Fantasy managers will have too much invested in today’s early kick-off. Consider it an amuse-bouche – albeit a rather coarse and heavy one – as we prepare for today’s main dish with City and United in action come three o’clock.
The team news rather compounds matters – those still nursing Stephane Sessegnon hangovers (hello!) are disappointed once again as the Benin international only makes the bench as part of Keith Downing’s reshuffle. The Baggies caretaker boss makes six changes as Billy Jones, Gareth McAuley, Youssouf Mulumbu, Chris Brunt, Nicolas Anelka and Saido Berahino are all drafted in. Matej Vydra, Craig Dawson, Claudio Yacob and Morgan Amalfitano are benched after starting at Spurs, while Zoltan Gera and Steven Reid are left out of the matchday squad. Shane Long misses out again with a calf injury.
Hosts West Ham make two changes – one of them enforced as Razvan Rat comes in for the injured James Collins, presumably shifting George McCartney to centre-back. Elsewhere, Jussi Jaaskelainen benefits from Adrian’s blunder in the defeat to Arsenal to earn a recall between the sticks.
Our Dugout Discussion chatroom is now open to steer your through the early kick-off and will remain available right through to the death at Cardiff this evening.
