West Ham United duo must get starts v Anderlecht after playing second fiddle
West Ham United have the chance for some much-needed rotation on Thursday when they visit Anderlecht in the Conference League.
The Hammers have picked up two successive wins to kickstart their group stage campaign in fine style to create a decent buffer to third place early on.
The Belgian side are expected to be the toughest challenger to West Ham in the group stage and are currently living up to that billing with four points from the first two games.
A draw against FCSB of Romania dented aspirations somewhat and David Moyes should be looking to rotate his side as much as possible, especially in midfield.
Declan Rice and Tomas Soucek have played the vast majority of minutes this season and did so last season too before breaking down towards the end of the campaign.
Moyes has to learn from those understandable mistakes and bring in Flynn Downes and Conor Coventry while he can without jeopardising the club’s place in the competition.
Downes has just one minute of Premier League football to his name so far but has seen more of the pitch in Europe while Coventry has been even less of an impact.
Both are very capable central midfield players who are yet to be truly tested at the London Stadium and there is no better time than the present to do that.
Premier League games are of much higher importance to the football club at the moment having only just climbed out of the relegation zone on Saturday thanks to the 2-0 win against Wolves.
They can very easily afford to rest both Rice and Soucek, as well as other senior players if possible, and remain competitive in any Conference League group stage game.
Moyes can still have them on the bench for cover if needed to make himself feel safer.