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Manuel Pellegrini is spoiled for choice with his team selection ahead of Monday night's Barclays Premier League match against newly promoted Aston Villa at Villa Park, a match that could see West Ham move in to the top three ahead of arch London rivals Tottenham and Arsenal.

Fortunately the Barclays Premier League bandwagon cranks up the volume again this weekend, although the Hammers faithful have to wait until Monday for their team's match away to newly promoted Aston Villa. During the domestic break the media have, as normal, never let the truth get in the way of a good story, consequently there has been a proliferation of 'Declan Rice' stories.

The International break is always difficult for journalists who cover the domestic game, tittle tattle and rumours are all there is to go on, slim pickings indeed. The fact that England are in the opposite to the ‘group of death’ makes the situation of even less interest to the cognoscenti.

Some mischievous person must have been at the halftime refreshments over at the ITV broadcasting hub at Wembley for England's game against Bulgaria.

LSD in the tea can be the only explanation for the mass hallucinations experienced by Roy Keane and Ian Wright. Why else would they have both criticised Declan Rice's performance to the extent that they did?

Admittedly Rice had a quiet first half and a more active 2nd half, but he did exactly what he was supposed to do, a fact that is born out by his impressive match statistics.

The transfer window has 'slammed' shut in Europe, meaning only players who are free agents may be signed now, once the English transfer window closed there was speculation that Hammers might try and sign bad boy Mario Balotelli, fortunately he ended up signing for Brescia, so Hammers dodged a bullet there.

There is a certain irony that fans stump up huge amounts of money to subscribe to Sky, BT Sport and other media platforms in order to then have their games constantly rescheduled. Clubs do get extra revenue for matches shown, but what about the fans? Far too often games are rescheduled with absolutely no thought or care given to how inconvenient the new arrangements might be, and irrespective of the costs incurred by fans who have had to make plans a long time ahead.

Felipe Anderson put in one hell of a performance during Hammers 2-0 victory over newly promoted Norwich City, as did most of his team mates. The Brazilain attacking midfielder shone as he bamboozled the Norwich defenders time after time, it was not uncommon to see three or four of them trying to undo his mazey runs.

In recent games Jordan Hugill, Grady Diangana and Sead Haksabanovic have all put in stellar performances while out on loan from West Ham United, these are not the only loanees doing well, but they are catching the headlines, and more importantly all have a recall clause in their loan deals.

West Ham United have confirmed, as per our previous article, that Javier Hernandez has joined Sevilla for an undisclosed fee believed to be around €10 Million with maybe a couple more in add ons.

Spanish La Liga side Sevilla are set to confirm the signing of Javier Hernandez from West Ham United either this evening or first thing tomorrow, the player quietly flew in to Jerez airport on friday in a private executive jet ahead of his medical, which he duly completed. Hernandez's departure was kick started by the player handing in a written request to leave the club he joined for £15 Million two and a half years ago.