West Ham got their 2025/26 pre season campaign underway at the weekend with a 3-1 win against Swiss club Grasshopper Club Zurich, as Graham Potter’s side made a positive start to their preparations ahead of the new season.

Goals from Andy Irving, Callum Marshall and Lucas Paqueta sealed the victory for the Hammers in their first pre season fixture. New signing El Hadji Malick Diouf also made his first outing in claret and blue.

Hammers striker Niclas Fullkrug, who featured in the first half of the tie, went close to grabbing a goal of his own after glancing his header just over the bar from a James Ward Prowse corner.

Speaking after the Hammers pre season opener, the German international provided his thoughts on the match, the teams hard work in training and provided a grounded outlook on the teams aims for the new season, stressing the importance of letting performances do the talking.

“We had control of possession and had some shots on target, and overall it was a solid performance against an opponent that are much further (in their pre season schedule than us).” said Fullkrug reflecting on the Hammers performance.

Discussing the teams preparations so far, Fullkrug said: “We’ve trained now for nearly two weeks, and it’s been very tough, but we did a lot of good work in Germany (on our pre season training camp).”

The Hammers striker continued: “We’ve worked very hard so far, and in my opinion, the work we’ve done has been very good, and you could see that in the game today.”

Looking ahead, Fullkrug insisted the Hammers squad must start the campaign as they mean to go on, before getting caught up in discussing any aims or goals for the upcoming season: “I think it’s not good to speak with loud or big words. I think we have to prove in the first game (against Sunderland) what we are able to do. When we do that, then we can start to speak about our goals.”

The German international expressed his optimism about the potential of the West Ham squad and his hopes that their hard work in training will pay off during the campaign: “We’ve got a really good group of players here, and hopefully we can translate our hard work onto the pitch next season.”

Fullkrug endured a frustrating debut season in East London, with injury problems limiting him to just 18 Premier League appearances. Fullkrug will be hoping that an injury free 2025/26 season, as well as a consistent run in the team will allow him to show the West Ham fans what he can do and hopefully score some important goals for Graham Potter’s side.