With the preceding game to West Ham's 'murder month' being an away fixture against League Champions Manchester City, David Moyes knows now, more than ever, that his squad is going to be stretched to the limit. It is well known how paper thin Hammers squad is, especially for a side fighting on four fronts, so fans will be looking to see how Moyes copes with the deluge of games that are about to descend on the club.
The January window is just less than FIVE WEEKS away, however between then and now Hammers will play a staggering ELEVEN GAMES, so despite there being money available to bring players in, the boat containing the club's Champions League aspirations may well have sailed by then.
David Moyes can only use players that he currently has at his disposal, so his options are limited. What about the Youth players? Ben Johnson has broken through into the first team and does not look out of place against even the big guns, then there is the promising prospect of Alese, Chesters, Perkins all of whom have already been in the Europa League squad.
The problem for David Moyes is that despite their obvious ability, throwing them in against teams like Man City FOR Premier League encounters could be extremely detrimental in the long run, you only have to look back at what happened when he tried to use Ademipo Odubeko against Man Utd, and that was only an FA Cup game!
Even though he will be pressured for 'fresh legs' as the 'wall' of fixtures engulf the club, Moyes will NOT risk scarring young players for life. A trial by fire up at the Etihad is NOT what a young player needs, but just to play devil's advocate, how old was Wayne Rooney when Moyes gave him his Everton debut? - Ed
Comments
To be fair
We have more depth than this time or indeed any time last season. Chesters, Alese and Perkins look promising and I feel will step in and up when needed. Kral finding his feet and showed glimpses on Thursday night, Nobes had a good run out, Diop looked solid and Vlasic was excellent. Areola is indeed good cover for Fabs. Masuaku while not the deal defensively certainly showed what he can do going forward. Wth Coufal and Johnson vying for the RB berth all we really need is cover for LB as I am sure Sonny Perkins looks a prospect up front and I like the look of Okoflex. So not as thin IMHO as your piece suggests though I would agree that a couple of additions would be welcome especially someone of the calibre of Lingard. Afcon will deprive us of Benrahma other clubs stand to lose more.
Always said
That the European place was a fixture list we could do without. Alese, Chesters and Perkins can hardly be judged as promising in these encounters with pretty feeble competition if we're completely honest and Vlasic just is not good enough full stop. Moyes obviously has no confidence in Kral otherwise he would have had more game time by now so the best thing to do is to accept the situation. Eleven games may sound daunting but back in the 60's it was a common theme to play so many games in a short period of time with squad sizes pretty much the same as we have now. So now is the time to man up and justify the obscene wages these players are on and stop whinging. They're playing on pretty carpets of pitches and little plastic balls softer than I used to play with in the school playground so moaning about it gets short shrift from me!