Deportivo Hammer
28/08/18

We take a welcome rest from the Premiership to hopefully have a good crack at the Carabao cup this year, obviously with all our spending in the summer there will be no reason for us to have to play the youth squad this year.

AFC Wimbledon are down in league 1 and sit 15th In the league winning just once in their league games so far this year. More importantly I feel, is that the game was away. They have lost their last 2 games at home. So I see no reason that we should not go there and turn over a struggling team.

Obviously it has not been a great start to our premiership campaign but hopefully we can use the Cup as a welcome distraction and try to play without the pressures that the league can bring.  While this in turn could give the team some much needed confidence which we can bring into our important league game against Wolves.

AFC Wimbledon have a few selection problems with Watson, Soares and Appiah all struggling with injury and not certain to be involved. Manager Neal Ardley has already tried to take the pressure of his own players by saying that they are not expected to win.
But of course most West Ham fans will know that there is certainly no guarantees regarding cup football.

Pellegrini will no doubt ring the changes with West Ham but I still expect a team that would not look out of place in a Premier League game.  I don’t expect Arnautovic to play due to his knock against Arsenal. Mark Noble and Antonio are also probably not going to be risked.

Predicted line up :

AFC Wimbledon : King, Sibbick, Nightingale, Oshilaja, Purrington, Wagstaff, Wordworth, Trotter, Garrett, Hanson, Piggott

West Ham United : Adrian, Zabaleta, Diop, Ogbonna, Cresswell, Rice, Obiang, Snodgrass, Perez, Yarmolenko, Hernandez.

The bench will be filled with many starters for us and Cullen and Holland will also be on the bench.  This team I feel will be way to strong for the opposition tonight I think we will come away easily with the win and progress through the to the next round.   The final score I predict to be 0-4 to the Hammers with Perez getting a couple of goals along with Hernandez and Snodgrass joining him on the scoresheet.