West Ham vs. Bournemouth
Venue: Upton Park
Kick off: 3pm
Two sides looking to recover from defeats will meet on Saturday (today) when West Ham United host Bournemouth at Upton Park.
The Hammers were unable to build on an excellent start to the season last weekend, while Bournemouth make the trip to London still searching for their first points.
Slaven Bilic was the talk of the Premier League after the first weekend of the new season, but the praise was quickly forgotten last week when the Hammers followed a shock win over Arsenal by losing 2-1 at home to Leicester City.
Second-best for much of the game, the Hammers were justifiably disappointed with a couple of decisions after they were denied a penalty in the first half before Adrian was shown a straight red card late on.
It appeared that West Ham found it difficult to take charge of the game at Upton Park following such an impressive defensive display in the win over the Gunners, but there were still positives for Bilic to take, despite seeing hopes of a six-point start dashed last Saturday.
More signings seem inevitable before the end of the transfer window as the club desperately search for attacking reinforcements, but neither Emmanuel Adebayor nor Burak Yilmaz appear to be heading to East London, with Galatasaray rejecting a bid for the latter earlier this week.
As West Ham’s passionate supporters continue to hope that Bilic is the right man to lead them forward with a new style, the pressure will be on the Croatian’s side to prove that they can improve on that memorable display at the Emirates Stadium.
After the celebrations which followed promotion in May and the anticipation ahead of Bournemouth’s Premier League debut, the Championship winners have been brought back down to earth with a couple of defeats which have been difficult to accept.
Despite being the better side for much of the opening day, the Cherries started the season with a loss to Aston Villa and another impressive display passed by without a reward as Liverpool claimed a 1-0 victory at Anfield on Monday night.
Bournemouth’s players will quickly get tired of being told that they have played well in defeat, and the pressure is now on the Cherries to ensure a losing start does not become a crisis as they look to get their first points on the board in the capital.
West Ham possible starting lineup: Randolph, Jenkinson, Reid, Ogbonna, Creswell, Noble, Kouyate, Obiang, Payet, Lanzini, Sakho.
Bournemouth possible starting lineup: Boruc, Francis, Elphick, Cook, Daniels, Ritchie, O’Kane, Surman, Tomlin, Gradel, Wilson.
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