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Fresh from topping the Premier League list for the most expensive 'mascot experience', Hammers are earning another unenviable top of the pile listing, namely as the team with the most injuries to their first team squad. Although Pablo Zabaleta and Robert Snodgrass stand a decent chance of making the match day squad, the rest of the players on the list have a ways to go before even being considered for inclusion in to the first team, Fabian Balbuena, Javier Hernandez, Jack Wilshere, Ryan Fredericks, Andrily Yarmolenko, Carlos Sanchez, Winston Reid and Manuel Lanzini.

Although buoyed by the return of Marko Arnoutovic from injury, Manuel Pellegrini still has the unenviable task of selecting a team capable of seeing off Brighton & Hove Albion at the London Stadium from an increasingly long injury list.
Fabian Balbuena has joined the list of long-term injuries with no return date after suffering from knee ligament damage, Balbuena joins Jack Wilshere, Winston Reid, Ryan Fredericks, Andrily Yarmolenko, Carlos Sanchez and Manuel Lanzini with no exact date scheduled for their return.

No, this is not an article relating to West Ham United's unbelievable injury list, a list that keeps on growing! Instead it is about the price of being a football 'mascot', it may seem naive now, but back in the day 'mascots' either wore silly costumes and took part in dodgy penalty shoot outs, or, were selected because they had been ill or because they were randomly selected from the club's 'youth' membership. The BBC, despite employing Mark Lawrenson, usually research things properly, it is to them that we must credit the following information.