Frank McAvennie: No pre-season concerns around West Ham trio
We’re delighted to welcome former West Ham United striker Frank McAvennie as our exclusive columnist. Each week he’ll be giving his views on the biggest talking points at the London Stadium…
Frank McAvennie has predicted Declan Rice, Tomas Soucek and Vladimir Coufal to quickly return to top form once they return back to West Ham this summer.
The trio, alongside Andriy Yarmolenko and Lukasz Fabianski, will come back late to pre-season training after their international exertions at Euro 2020.
Yarmolenko, however, is expected to leave the London Stadium this summer, while Fabianski will be more rested having not played at the tournament, and by virtue of being a goalkeeper.
The other three, though, all played integral roles as their national team progressed to the latter stages of the competition, and they are likely to return in the latter stages of July, or at the beginning of August.
As such, they may only have a week or so to get up to scratch before the Premier League campaign kicks off against Newcastle United on August 15.
Ex-Irons forward McAvennie, however, has no concerns over their fitness.
“I think today’s players are not like when I played,” McAvennie told West Ham Zone.
“These boys will be getting a holiday but they’ll be training, these guys don’t stop training.
“It won’t take them a week to get up to speed I would think.
“Declan Rice played last Sunday [11/07/21] but the other boys will come back a week earlier than him.
“The Czech Republic boys are fit, all they do is train and repeat.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about these boys, they’re proper athletes now.”
The Irons have already played three pre-season fixtures, but there are at least four more to go.
Away trips to Reading, Celtic and Brentford await before a stern test at the London Stadium versus Atalanta on August 7.
That home clash is likely to see the return of Rice, Soucek and Coufal to the line-up, and it will provide a good opportunity to see how ready they are for the Premier League opener eight days later.
In other West Ham news, the Irons are expected to sign this ‘Powerful’ EUROs star which will seal the exit for a Manuel Pellegrini signing.
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