westhamfans.org

Nikola Vlasic's underwhelming first season with West Ham has had many fans questioning why the club paid CSK Moscow just shy of £30 Million for the player, well the fact of the matter is that Hammers HAVE NOT paid anywhere near that amount, in fact Hammers have paid less than £5 Million so far and are currently under NO obligation to pay anymore until Russian forces withdraw from the Ukraine!

Whenever a decent striker comes on the market West Ham are somehow temporarily 'linked' with the player, until they make a big money move to another club. This has been the case for a litany of transfer targets in recent windows, but that might be all about to change!

According to Italian newspaper La Stampa, Belotti is facing an uncertain next few days on his future due to his unwillingness to sign the new contract he has on offer from his present club Torino, in fact he has been given only until the end of the weekend to make his mind up.

Mark 'Mr West Ham' Noble's illustrious playing career will come to a close next week at the Amex Stadium in the game against Brighton, having already experienced his 'going away party' in Stratford on Sunday fans can expect more sanguine Noble as the reality kicks in that he will no longer be able to don the claret & blue and strut his stuff for the club that has been central to virtually his entire life.

When Riyad Mahrez's penalty kick was saved by Lukasz Fabianski towards the end of the game against Manchester City, it seemed to all and sundry that the referee Anthony Taylor was going to ask for the kick to be retaken and that if that kick was missed that he would take the next one himself, such was his bias towards City.

West Ham: Fabiański, Coufal, Dawson, Zouma, Cresswell, Rice ©, Souček, Bowen, Lanzini, Fornals, Antonio
Subs: Areola (GK), Johnson, Fredericks, Král, Noble, Masuaku, Okoflex, Vlašić, Yarmolenko

Man City: Ederson, João Cancelo, Laporte, Fernandinho ©, Zinchenko, Rodri, Bernardo Silva, De Bruyne, Mahrez, Grealish, Gabriel Jesus
Subs: Steffen (GK), Aké, Egan-Riley, Mbete, Gündoğan, Lavia, Sterling, Foden, Palmer

Ahead of Hammers penultimate game of the season, much has been made of visitors to the game Manchester City's centre back woes, with apparently only one fit to play for the fixture. However before getting too excited home fans must appreciate that City play at such a level that they hardly need centre backs!

Yes they will be exposed defensively, but realistically City play a style of 'total' football similar in a way to the great Ajax team of the seventies, so any hopes and thoughts of over running them should be tempered with the knowledge of just how good they are in attack.

Man City's devastation of Wolves last night all but guaranteed West Ham a place in European competition next season, unless the midlanders manage to beat already relegated Norwich and title contenders Liverpool.

To read some of the clap trap emerging from Merseyside you would think that Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool only have to snap their fingers and Hammers starlet Jarrod Bowen would come scurrying up to Anfield in order to sign on the dotted line, NOTHING can be further from the truth!

Norwich: Krul, Aarons, Hanley (c), Williams, Byram, Gilmour, Sørensen, Rashica, Dowell, Lees-Melou, Pukki Subs: Gunn, Gibson, Rupp, Placheta, Tzolis, Giannoulis, Gibbs, Springett, Rowe
West Ham: Fabiański, Coufal, Zouma, Dawson, Cresswell, Rice (c), Lanzini, Fornals, Benrahma, Bowen, Antonio Subs: Areola, Johnson, Fredericks, Masuaku, Noble, Král, Souček, Vlašić, Yarmolenko

Towards the end of what has been an excellent season, where the team have played above and beyond expectations given the paucity of money spent, Hammers go into their final three games knowing that they still just about have control of their Premier League destiny.