Three players could be out of West Ham United FA Cup clash v Brentford after fresh blow
West Ham United could be without Kurt Zouma, Maxwel Cornet and Vladimir Coufal for their FA Cup tie against Brentford on Saturday.
David Moyes has confirmed Coufal will face a late assessment ahead of the fixture against the Bees after being forced off in the Hammers’ 2-2 draw against Leeds United.
Zouma has missed the last three games following knee surgery and it’s understood the fixture in West London could potentially come too soon for the 28-year-old. Maxwel Cornet is 100 per cent out of the match, with the Ivorian recovering from a calf injury.
“Vladimir Coufal, we’re going to have to have a look at it because he took a clattering the other night. Should’ve been a sending-off. We’ll need to check Vladimir out,” said the West Ham boss (Football London, 6 January).
“Kurt Zouma is getting closer, but maybe not yet, we just need to check. He’s only just going to start training.”
Cup run
It will be interesting to see whether the West Ham boss targets a cup run this season. At the moment the Scot will be looking to put any sort of win on the board to try and kickstart his side’s campaign. The draw against Leeds was improved, but there will be a lot of frustration with how they sat back and invited the equaliser.
This group of players haven’t been in many winning positions of late and were a little naive in how they saw the game out in West Yorkshire.
The point against Jesse Marsch’s side has certainly earned Moyes a little longer to turn things around. The board want their man to succeed and it’s been reported by ExWHUemployee (Patreon, 31 December) that they’re looking to stand by their man.
Moyes will be under no illusions, with wins required to ease the growing calls for his time at the club to come to an end. The next fixtures against Wolves and Everton could be extremely telling when it comes to The Scot’s future.