West Ham travel to Southampton on Saturday for a must-win game in fairly good health in terms of injuries.
Hammers boss Manuel Pellegrini is under pressure to pick up a win after successive defeats to Wolves and Arsenal has left him teetering on the verge of being sacked.
West Ham have won just once since September 22 and have slid down the table from a Hugh of fifth to just one place outside the drop zone after the abysmal run of from which has seen them pick up just five points since beating a Manchester United 2-0 nearly three months ago.
The Hammers don’t have too many injury concerns, no new ones anyway, following the defeat to Arsenal on Monday night.
Aaron Cresswell limped off having injured himself in a challenge with Nicolas Pepe which he was booked for but has been back in training this week. Arthur Masuaku could come into contention should the Englishman not make it.
Lukasz Fabianski, Manuel Lanzini and Jack Wilshere are definitely ruled out, with the latter suffering yet another setback as Pellegrini admitted he was working “with some pain” at his pre-match press conference.
With all that injury news in mind, here is how we think the Hammers will line up:
For us, three back four remains the same but as previously mentioned, a lot depends on the fitness of Cresswell. Masuaku had a torrid 40 minutes after coming on at London Stadium and looked like a player who wasn't featuring regularly. We have opted to bring back Issa Diop after an three-game absence at the expense of Fabian Balbuena.
In midfield, we have gone with the same five that started against Arsenal though Andriy Yarmolenko is pushing for a recall having been axed for the defeat to the Gunners.
Up front, Michail Antonio continues to keep Sebastien Haller out of the team as we don’t think that Pellegrini will change from his usual one up front formation.
Pellegrini will certainly be expecting improved performances from his midfield duo of Felipe Anderson and Pablo Fornals as both have really struggled to get going at all this season and they need to show up when their manager needs them the most.
