It`s been a while since Hammers have visited Wembley, in fact it was 31 years ago, and that ended badly for them losing the replay against Liverpool at Villa park.
On Wednesday night they will be back, and once again I expect it to end badly for them, although it could be a good deal trickier than it might look at a cursory glance.
Up until recently pundit after pundit has focused on the effect of a new ‘home` ground on our results and much has been made of the Hammers woes in theirs. After our result against Liverpool on Sunday you will be hard pressed to find a Spurs fan that now believes it is still an obstacle to success this season.
Results for the spammers at their new multi-venue ground (or even away) have been dire; it must be said even after the spending of an outrageous sum of further monies to turn it into a football stadium, you will not find too many Spam fans that think it works well as their new home.
The total cost of converting the Olympic Stadium from an athletics stadium into a multi-use venue soared to £323m, taking the overall cost of West Ham United`s new home to £752m – largely borne by taxpayers, to a mind-boggling sum that suggests that this whole venue has been the subject (at best) of some awful muddled planning, thinking and execution, which you could pretty much say is true of their player purchases as well !
See:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/nov/02/west-ham-olympic-stadium-deal-explained-london-mayor-sadiq-khan
By most pundits reckoning Bilic`s job is hanging by a thread, assuming there is some truth to this speculation he has a decision to make; play his best knowing that we are not likely to do the same, or play a mixed team that can put up a credible performance, but likely to go out.
The EFL is probably West Hams best chance of winning anything this season, but concentrating on it when they are playing so badly and so low in the Premier League could easily transform itself into a pyric Victory. You do not have to walk past too many Pie Mash shops and cafes in East London or go online to a Spam forum before you hear and read a group of fans talking about Bilics` and West Hams chances of survival in the Premier League this season.
At the moment my bet is he will want a win and will put out as strong a team as he can risk, a win for them against us might just be the spark that ignites their recovery.
For reasons that most Spurs fans will laugh at, West Ham think they`re our peers, they most definitly not but that is not to say they won’t raise their game against us, because they always do.
My own view of that is one simple test; there probably is not a single West Ham player that wouldn`t see a move to Tottenham as a big step up in their careers.
So, my bet is that Poch will put out an inexperienced team (in terms of playing together) as he`s already said our aims and ambitions have to be bigger and higher than the EFL Cup. It seems some agree with that, some still aren`t convinced and it looks like that argument won`t be settled until seasons end and we see what, if any successes we have.
So, I`m still going for a narrow win, but it`s likely to be a frantic bad-tempered affair as there is no love lost between the clubs.
My starting XI would be: Vorm; Walker-Peters, Foyth, Vertonghen, Rose; Winks, Dier; Sissoko, Dele, Son; Llorente
I suspect we`ll name a strong bench and Poch will only use it if we have to.
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