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Will Hammers Be The Bees Knees?

nevillenixon's picture
Submitted by nevillenixon on Sat, 31/07/2021 - 07:10


West Ham take on newly promoted Brentford at their new 17,500 seat Community Stadium this afternoon for a 3pm kick off friendly, the game being part of the deal that saw Said Benrahma join David Moyes's men last season. Some fans will question the wisdom of playing a Barclays Premier League rival so soon before the beginning of the next campaign.

The fact is that the friendly was arranged before Brentford managed to gain promotion via the play offs, it is a relatively common event for a players ex-club to host a friendly with his new club as part of a 'deal sweetener', pre-Covid gate receipts would have made a decent payday for the vendor club.

Brentford can have fans in their spanking new ground, the match is also being televised by BT Sport, so Hammers fans may get a chance to see a cameo appearance by new signing from PSG, Alphonse Areola. Although Hammers' recruitment is coming under increasing close scrutiny, the squad have to get on with the job of being prepared for the Betway Cup game against Atalanta before the season starts for real against Newcastle the following week.

It will be interesting to see how Moyes approaches the Bees game, does he go full chaff or use the game to give some of the youth players 'competitive' game time? Today will be a special one for Said Benrahma, returning to the club that nurtured him, but don't expect him to go easy on them, quite the opposite, especially as it is a friendly.

It is highly unlikely that Angelo Ogbonna will be risked, despite recovering from his slight hamstring tweak, his injury showing up the glaring paucity of the squad. Why the club let the General AKA Fabian Balbuena leave is baffling, but there is no point in dwelling on what is already done, however it does mean one of the club's promising youngsters can hopefully step up.

The impending arrival of Kurt Zouma will go a long way to quell fears fans had ofthe club being 'left behind', another couple of players and suddenly things begin to look a lot rosier. Brentford will give it a real go this afternoon, so don't expect another Celtic! Happy viewing- Ed

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mcbikeman's picture

Because of work but good to see we are keeping our preseason form going with another win the only thing to put a downer on the result and day is hearing that we are open to selling Connor Coventry to Peterboro or any number of championship clubs on a permanent deal wtf? give youth a chance it would seem not Nev.

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