Written by @DeportivoHammer

Now the England games are done and dusted, we can get back to the Premier League.  West Ham make a short journey across town to visit Crystal Palace and our old manager Alan Pardew and ex player James Tomkins.  I hope Tomkins gets a good reception from our fans as I can’t blame him for wanting to play more. Pardew I don’t really care about.

Crystal Palace started the season poorly only picking up a single point in the opening month of the season, but since then managed to win three games and getting a draw while losing to Southampton. It might be worth noting that the Palace wins have only been against fellow strugglers Sunderland, Stoke And Middlesbrough.  The draw came away at high flying Everton.

West Ham managed to end a poor run of defeats with a draw last time out at the New London Stadium against newly promoted Middlesbrough.  After going behind we managed to hit back straight away thanks to a piece of Dimitri Payet Magic but was unable to find a winner.  In both games home and away last year Payet was the star of the show, let’s hope he is again tomorrow.

Palace at the moment stand 8th in the league with 11 points and have not lost for 5 games. While West Ham find themselves at the wrong end of the table in 18th place and only 1 win in the last 6 games.  The Hammers are level on points with Swansea and 2 behind 16th place Middlesbrough.  A run of two or three wins now would help put aside a lot of the negativity and propel the cub upwards.

Palace will be without captain Scott Dann who is recovering from a Hamstring injury, Papa Souare and Jonathan Benteke are also missing from the squad.

The good news for West Ham United is the return from injury of Aaron Cresswell, who has been sorely missed by the hammers. Hopefully he will bring back some much needed stability to a back four which has been poor most of the season.  Andy Carroll, Diafra Sakho and Andre Ayew should all be back soon, With Arthur Masuaku, Sam Byram and Gokhan Tore still long term absentees.  Calleri and Nordtveit seem to have shaken off small injuries to be available.

Predicted Line Ups

Crystal Palace : Mandanda, Ward, Tomkins, Delaney, Kelly, Ledley, McArthur, Puncheon, Zaha, Townsend, Benteke

West Ham United : Adrian, Arbeloa, Cresswell, Reid, Ogbonna, Obiang, Kouyate, Noble, Payet, Antonio, Zaza.

There has been lots of talk about how many games Zaza can play before making his transfer a permanent one. I still think he will have at least 1 good game before going back to Italy. I’m hoping it is tomorrow afternoon.  More out of hope than anything else I will go for a 1-2 win with Benteke scoring against us but hopefully it’s only a consolation.