West Ham prepare to face their most-feared opponent in Chelsea striker Romelu Lukaku
West Ham will come up against their most-feared opponent if Romelu Lukaku plays for Chelsea at the London Stadium this weekend.
David Moyes’s side host the Blues on Saturday afternoon (4 December) looking for their first win in four matches.
Following successive defeats to Wolverhampton Wanderers and Manchester City, the Hammers drew 1-1 against Brighton and Hove Albion on Wednesday (1 December).
Chelsea are the current Premier League leaders and re-signed Lukaku for £97.5million in the summer after letting him go seven years ago.
The Belgian has enjoyed his previous encounters against West Ham and has a superb scoring record when he faces them.
He has netted 11 goals and registered four assists in 15 matches versus the Hammers, making them his favourite opponents as he has not scored more goals against any other team.
Equally, no current player has scored more goals against West Ham than Lukaku. Harry Kane has also scored 11 times against them, but he has done so in three more appearances than the Belgian.
Therefore, David Moyes will hope that Lukaku is still not ready to start at the London Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
The 28-year-old recently missed six games due to injury, but has made substitute appearances in Chelsea’s last two Premier League matches against Manchester United and Watford.
In his absence, Kai Havertz has been the man to start upfront but has scored just once in five appearances.
It seems as if Thomas Tuchel has been easing Lukaku back into first team action, but Saturday’s game could be when he unleashes the centre forward from the start.
West Ham have not kept a league clean sheet since Angelo Ogbonna suffered an ACL injury, so former Chelsea man Kurt Zouma and most likely Craig Dawson will have their work cut out to keep Lukaku quiet.
In other West Ham news, the Hammers need to act fast to sign this 14-goal striker.
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