West Ham United vs Brentford; Monday 9th March @ 7.30pm (or 2.30pm for those of us in the USA & Can)
Hoping to extend my one game winning streak. I might be delusional, but we might actually have a shot at winning the FA cup! COYI!
Comments
Summerville I guess willl be on the bench.
Areola
Walker-Peters Todibo Mavro Scarles
Magassa Soucek Kante.
Bowen Lamadrid
Wilson
But I am no Lukerz
So I would rest, Summerville, Bowen, Tatty. Fernandes, Diasi, Tobido, Diouf, AWB, and Hermanson.
I’d play everybody and try to keep the momentum going. I’d 100% rather win the cup than stay up.
This is only the third time we've drawn Brentford in the Cup, the first was in the 4th round 1926-27. We were 9th in the First Division and had beaten Spurs in the 3rd round while Brentford were midtable in the Third Division South. We drew 1-1 at home but lost the replay 2-0 5 days later
They lost to 2nd Division Reading in the 5th round who lost to Cardiff in the semis who beat Arsenal in the final. We finished 6th
The second was in the 3rd round three seasons ago when Benrahma came on with 20 minutes left and scored a beauty from 30 yards. He's playing in Saudi these days
The only players left from that season are Bowen, Soucek, Areola and Fabianski while Brentford still have nine players on their books
Brentford do have a few injury problems, LB Rico Henry had to go off after 20 minutes against Bournemouth with a hamstring injury and will be out for some time. With Aaron Hickey and Vitaly Janelt both injured right footed CB Kristoffer Ajer had to fill in at left back.
Keane Lewis-Potter is another option at LB although Edwards has played him more as a winger than a full back
Edwards was hopeful that Reiss Nelson would be fit but wasn't entirely sure
There were 4 teenagers on the bench against Bournemouth, only one has played in the Premier League. Brentford don't really have a big enough squad to rest players
Tbh I'm a little Natalie Imbruglia on this one. We don't play again after this until Saturday evening, and so you would think most players should be OK to go again then, but we have been relying on a small core of players recently and we know, from how our form has tailed off towards the end of recent seasons, that an over-reliance on the same players week in week out can see dips in form.
Realistically our chances of winning the whole thing are pretty small given the teams still left in it, but you'd probably have said the same thing about Palace last season. There's also the fact that it's good for squad morale to win games, and to keep some momentum going into a couple of tough league games.
So I think I'd look to rest maybe 2 or 3 players, which may make it tough but still winnable. Something's not right with Bowen atm imo, so maybe give him a rest (unless he wants to try and play himself into form), and Taty puts in a huge shift every game, even more so since Pablo has been injured. Then one of Fernandes and Soucek. You can make a case for both needing a rest; Tommy is older and probably needs it more, but Fernandes plays an awful lot of minutes, puts an awful lot of work in, and is perhaps pivotal to our chances of staying up (not that all our starting XI aren't).