West Ham playing XI vs Dundee: Felipe Anderson on the bench, Frederik Alves starts in defence
West Ham United are set to begin their pre-season campaign with an away fixture against Dundee.
The back line has a familiar feel to it with Ryan Fredericks and Aaron Creswell starting as full-backs and Angelo Ogbonna at the heart of the defence.
21-year-old Frederik Alves will be looking to impress as he partners the Italian defender at centre-back.
Nathan Trott, who played a handful of games in the Premier League 2 last season, will get a few games under his belt with Lukasz Fabianski not having joined the camp yet.
Mark Noble captains this side and will be the anchor in midfield. Highly-rated youngster Conor Coventry will partner him – playing a more box-to-box role.
Just ahead of the two, the more attack-minded Nathan Holland will be expected to start as a number 10, just behind Michail Antonio who will lead the line.
Exit-linked Felipe Anderson is on the bench and it’s unsure how long he will be on the books of West Ham, given he’s been strongly linked with an exit.
Let’s begin
Declan Rice has the small matter of a Euro 2020 final to tend to, so will join the squad closer to the start of the next season.
Fabianski, Andriy Yarmolenko, Tomas Soucek, Vladimir Coufal and Said Benrahma are still to join pre-season training, but the other players including some of the U-23s are in contention to play in the coming games.
This would be a great game to play some of our fringe players as they’ve struggled for minutes last season and would come of use this time around.
Playing in the Europa League would mean that we would have to heavily rely on our squad depth and that could see a reduction in the players that are sent out on loan.
17-year-old defender Jamal Baptiste is on the bench and he is one to watch out for. Hopefully, David Moyes gives him some minutes in the second half of the contest.
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