West Ham host Brentford in the Premier League

National World - LocalTV

A much needed 3 points for The Hammers…

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00:00Brentford have been through a lot of spells of inconsistency, quite like West Ham this

00:12season. How do you look going into this game? Is it one where a bit of a break from football

00:19due to a No FA Cup match? This is something that Graham Potter would have liked, a bit

00:24of extra training to get his ideas across and they can really go and give a great performance

00:29Yeah, I mean, we need to win. I think, you know, first and foremost, we need three points

00:34on the board. The performance against Chelsea was good and probably warranted something

00:39out of the game. We didn't get it. So as a result of that, we kind of need some points

00:44at the weekend at home against Brentford and Brentford have been out of form of late. Their

00:50away form in particular hasn't been great as well all season. They've mostly relied

00:54on their really strong home form. So, you know, there is, I would never say that we

00:59should expect to win because I don't think you should expect to win any football match

01:03at this level. But we certainly are good enough to win the game. And you're right, Graham

01:10Potter's had only about 10 days between fixtures, more than that actually, close to two weeks

01:18to bed in Edmund Ferguson, to welcome James Will Prowse back into the squad and kind of

01:24work out how he's going to be used, whether he is going to be a backup or we go straight

01:28into that midfield and get the team really working to his plans and his way of working.

01:34Because, like I said before, we've seen green shoots positivity under Graham Potter. Now

01:40we want to continue seeing that improvement and that progress. And I think this weekend

01:46against a Brentford side that are a little bit out of sorts, a little bit inconsistent,

01:50it's a really, really good opportunity for us to go out there, put on a really, really

01:55strong performance, get three points on the board, hopefully see a West Ham striker score

02:00a goal for the first time in a long time and use that as a bit of a springboard to push

02:08on. We've got Arsenal after that, so it's a couple of difficult fixtures after Brentford.

02:13So that even adds more importance to the need for three points. I said earlier that

02:19we want to finish, I think we should expect to finish between 10th and 14th. What we don't

02:24want to do is go on a run of not picking up any points and then being sucked into that

02:28relegation scrap. So a win here is important. There are teams below us that are picking

02:33up results. Palace have overtaken us recently. So we need to pick up results and our home

02:40form between now and the end of the season is going to be vital to that, to ensure that

02:45we do that. Then we can then regroup in May and go again next year.

02:53Loads of West Ham injuries, especially in the forward line. You mentioned you want to see a

02:58West Ham striker score a goal, so a huge chance for the likes of Evan Ferguson and Jared Bowen

03:04back as well. Is there any sort of injury updates, anyone closer to returning to

03:10Grand Potside? We still went to hear from the club and from Grand Potside this week

03:14about what some of the injuries are like. The main one is Lucas Pageta, who obviously missed

03:21the Chelsea game with a groin injury, which he picked up in the Villa game a few days before.

03:25So there are still question marks over him and how serious that groin injury is. But I don't

03:32think anyone else is close, although Thaddeo was pictured at training, not in training, but he was

03:39pictured arriving at the training ground. And it's very well documented that he spent some time away

03:44from the training ground since he picked up that injury. So that's a good sign that perhaps Thaddeo

03:50is close to full fitness. But again, we don't really know what the extent of his journey back

03:55to full fitness is. But the rest of the squad, the rest of the injuries are still long term.

04:01I think Somerville is still a way off. Falkirk has still got a couple of months. We won't see

04:06Antonio for the rest of the season. So it might be a case of there will be no returning players

04:13from injury this weekend. But I think there is hope that Pageta might be back in time.

04:20But don't hold me to that. But yeah, we're kind of just still waiting,

04:22still early in the week. We're still waiting for Grand Potter and the club to speak on those ones.

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