West Ham United v Karlsruher SC Pre-season match, Saturday 23 July 2016, 5pm CEST (4pm BST) at the Franz-Fekete-Stadion, This is Hammers final warm up game ahead of this coming thursday's Europa League cup opener away to NK Domzale, Slaven Billic will be hoping to 'ease' players like Winston Reid and Andy Carroll in to a competitive environment gradually during this afternoon's match, he will of course be hoping his players avoid injury but they cannot be wrapped in cotton wool forever! Billic has 25 players available to choose from and will probably make wholesale changes at half time, this course of action will inevitably result in an uncoordinated display which may not be appealing to fans wanting to see a convincing performance, but pre-season friendlies are exactly what they say they are and as such are there for the manager to make judgements ahead of the serious fixtures to follow.
It should be remembered that the last time West Ham had a really successful pre-season during which they won all their matches, was the year they were relegated while managed by the 'undertaker' AKA Avram Grant! - Ed
Team sheets will be added as soon as they are reliably available.
