Make no mistake, this Sunday's clash between East and North London is a whole lot more than a London Derby and it's commensurate bragging rights for a few days, the game's hosts Tottenham will be desperate to get a result because their entire season has essentially fizzled out from a competition winning point of view, the best they can hope for is qualifying for the Champions or Europa League Cup competitions via their final Premier League points tally.
Whereas West Ham go into the game fresh from winning their place in the 1/4 finals of the Europa League Cup at the expense of serial winners Sevilla, admittedly the 120 minutes of frenetic football played against the La Liga title chasers is bound to take it's toll on David Moyes' players, but the game would have had a far more debilitating effect if they had lost!
Moyes admits he has "run the players into the ground" but it is what he expects, those who are not prepared to put in the hard yards soon find themselves ostracised and looking elsewhere for their next club. At least the players know that there is a pretty good chance of being selected, if they are fit enough to play! The problem, as has been mentioned on numerous occasions, is that Moyes has NO options that he can suddenly utilise to alter the outcome of games, he has been LUCKY in the last two matches to have had a pumped up Andriy Yarmolenko to call on, but suggestions that Moyes might give the Ukraine captain a start against Tottingham are wide of the mark.
The games have come thick and fast for West Ham, coping with playing on Thursday and Sunday as well as competing domestically on three fronts has been a massive challenge, one which by and large the club has successfully navigated, some say more by luck than judgement.
It is asking an awful lot of the players to 'give it a go' this afternoon, but facing a club with which there is so much enmity among supporters is probably the best of a bad situation, the players WILL definitely be up for it, whether their bodies are is another matter entirely! -LN
