West Ham have suffered a double injury blow ahead of their trip up to St James’ Park next Saturday, with Declan Rice ruled out of the game and star striker Michail Antonio now an early doubt.
Since we beat them 2-0 in London on the opening day, David Moyes’ men have regrouped and went on to become the Premier League’s surprise package of the season.
They currently sit in fourth place following last night’s 3-1 away victory against Wolves, but have been hit with injuries to TWO key players.
England international Rice was ruled out before the game, with a knee injury set to keep him out of action for at least a month; possibly putting his Euro 2021 place in jeopardy.
His formidable partnership with a Tomas Soucek in the middle of the park has been a cornerstone for their success this season and is a crushing blow for their European hopes – and one that we could look to take advantage of next weekend.
Top scorer Antonio also hobbled off 36 minutes into last night’s win with an injury they’ll be hoping isn’t serious, however he will almost certainly miss their trip to Tyneside IF his hamstring has gone again.
Our clash against West Ham on April 17 is our next home fixture and behind a tough run of games that sees us face five of the top seven in our final eight games – as well as Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal.
While we shouldn’t wish injuries on players, if two of David Moyes’ star men are ruled out when we welcome them to Tyneside in two weeks time, it can only be seen as a positive from our point of view in our battle to stay in the top flight.
Newcastle game is not next week, next week we play Leicester
Stuart(Quote)
We play you next weekend, so it is next week…
Olly Hawkins(Quote)
It was 3 2 not 3 1!
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