West Ham United confirmed XI v Everton – Emerson and all European scorers dropped
The confirmed West Ham starting XI for the trip to face David Moyes’ former side Everton in the Premier League has been released by the club.
The Hammers haven’t been in domestic action since the controversial visit to Chelsea which saw Maxwel Cornet’s late equaliser disallowed by the VAR.
Despite the postponement of the Newcastle game last weekend in the wake of the Queen’s death the Irons have been in Europa Conference League action twice, making heavy going of both FCSB and Silkeborg before ultimately winning each time.
That put a stop to the revival after a bad start to the season and leaves the two sides going into the game at Goodison level on points near the bottom of the league.
All the scorers from midweek are gone in Gianluca Scamacca, Maxwell Cornet and Craig Dawson, while Emerson is also dropped from the starting line-up after a run in the team.
Lukasz Fabianski returns in goal behind a defence of Vladimir Coufal, Thilo Kehrer, Kurt Zouma and Aaron Cresswell.
The midfield pairing of Declan Rice and Tomas Soucek are reunited, behind danger man Jarrod Bowen, record signing Lucas Paqueta and Pablo Fornals, while Michail Antonio is brought back in up front.
Back on the horse
The Chelsea debacle was particularly galling because of the improvements that had been on show in the previous two games to belated kick-start the league campaign.
Another point would have maintained momentum, but with that snatched away and then the footballing calendar suspended Moyes will have to get his team up for it almost from scratch.
The European wins have helped keep some continuity but the Scot has preferred different players often in that competition so far.
Hammers fans always enjoy getting one over on Frank Lampard after his exit over two decades ago as a player, but with both sides enduring testing starts to the campaign before gradual revivals it will be a tight one on Merseyside.
Amadou Onana, so close to becoming a West Ham player in the summer will likely be lining up in opposition on Sunday afternoon (18 September) to add another storyline to the game.
A loss here would threaten to undo most of the good work in recent weeks, and compound the poor early run, but a win has to be seen as achievable.
Take all three points against the Toffees and suddenly the club would spring up into mid-table and would give a more respectable look to the progress, and with Everton themselves yet to fully Moyes needs to push for the victory.