Wolves v West Ham - Monday April 5th 20.:00

baracks_a_hammer

I think we know Moyes well enough to know that there is no chance he would play Coventry whilst Noble is an available option.

IronHerb

Yeah, but dropping Fornals back alongside Soucek and bringing in Lanzini in front of them is a better option than playing Noble.

thornburyiron

Is Fornals available.

baracks_a_hammer

Moving Fornals back is a much better option than starting Noble but I doubt Moyes will see it that way. Would be great to be proven wrong though!

IronHerb

I'm assuming he is.

OldCastleSwift

Ex has confirmed Rice is out for 4-6 weeks with knee ligament damage.

Just terrific.

steve

Great just Great ,It really is the west ham way

Cuz1

Think we’ve been lucky it’s only 4/6 weeks though

Hamstew

Was great whilst it lasted. At least we are safe from relegation.

horshamhammer

Well at least we have had good investment in the squad to cope with such an eventuality. Oh wait.

steve

I blame spurs am sure it was a knock in that game that started all this

OldCastleSwift

horshamhammer said:

Well at least we have had good investment in the squad to cope with such an eventuality. Oh wait.

It was inevitable really. We'd have been incredibly fortunate to have gone all season without an injury to Rice or Soucek, but the board and manager were trusting to luck that they'd last it out.

Also a bit unhappy at Southgate. Rice hurt his knee in the 60th minute but played another half an hour. I guess this is the downside to having international players.

yoyo

We we're never going to go all season without this kind of thing happening. We all knew it and I guess Moyes did too. Now the pressure really is on to find a way to cope without him. A massive loss to the team. Time for Moyes to come up with a master plan and the board to realise just how vulnerable our squad is

EXETERHAMMER

Noble has had 8 starts for West Ham this season.
We have won 2, drawn 1 and lost 5 of these.
The two wins were against Stockport and Doncaster.
Fornals has had 24 starts for West Ham this season.
We have won 12, drawn 4 and lost 8 of these.

I think Fornals needs to sit in with Soucek rather than Noble if Rice is out.

whupathman

lets see if our paper thin squad can cope to the end of the season, how I hate our owners, last time we were in with a shout of CL our lack of squad quality cost us as well.

thornburyiron

4-6 weeks pretty well sees the season out

Hamstew

4-6 weeks but could be sooner if we are lucky. So out for Wolves, Leicester, Newcastle, Chelsea games at the most possibly. If we can get two wins from them which would have been decent even with Rice things might not be as bad as we first thought.
Then Burnley after those games which is a game we should win even without Rice. Hopefully back strong for the Everton game.

thornburyiron

6 weeks would take us up to and including Everton so available for last three.
I would have thought Moyes would have said something on Friday when he did his conference or gave his update.

claretandbluesky

What it will do is show how dependent or not we are on Rice. It will be a taste of what the challenge would be should we cash in and sell him.

whupathman

GSB would sell their own for a profit , then loan the money back to the club, charge 7% and claim the club is broke due to the debt, which of course they own.

steve

A lot will depend on if the players step up or feel sorry for themselves

Hamstew

Well whoever takes his place will surely need to step up.

IronHerb

Blimey. Not good news but not the end of the world. Posters were writing it's the end of the world when Antonio was out, and it wasn't. The same when Oggy got injured, but it wasn't. And Arthur etc.
It's a blow for sure but Rice has not been carrying West Ham single handedly.

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

Massive blow, but are we a 1 man team?

Rice will be missed, and seriously affects our chance for a top 4/6 finish but this squad hasn't got where it is because of JUST Rice

Noble, Fornals or Coventry can come in to replace him, plus with Masuaku/Ogbonna back we may go back to a back 5

This season isn't over just for this

Expat_Hammer

I just pray that it's Pablo rather thane Nobes

steve

My wife wanted to know why i am in a bad mood and upset,Is it your getting old ,Or covid getting you down.Or the state of the world ,No i told her we wont have Rice for 6 weeks .Yes you will she goes theres a bag and a half somewhere in the house .......Sometimes i just give up

Slacker

I noticed during the Poland game that he got a knock but he seemed to run it off. I’m sure Southgate would’ve asked him if he was ok to carry on.

claretandbluesky

I think one day they must look at the structure of world cup qualifying. Perhaps a seeding for the tournament itself with a qualifying structure for unseeded teams. I think that's how Tennis works, Roger Federer doesn't need go through qualifying for Wimbledon. We played pretty pointless games vs San Marino and Albania, with a group of players who are reaching the business end of the season at home and many involved in Europe also.

Pengeman

Noble has been a great servant of the Club but I don't think he has the legs for a high tempo EPL game. He won't be able to chase and usually wins nothing in the air. Moyes has had a few days to think about the line-up against Wolves and could move Coufal into midfield and play Fredericks/Johnson at the back in a 4-4-2/4-5-1 formation.

thornburyiron

BBC reporting he’s out for at least 4 weeks. Other reports that he’s in a knee brace and will have a scan when swelling goes down. Moyes and Southgate hoping he doesn’t need surgery and is out for season.