Preview: Everton vs. West Ham: Team News and Expected Starting Lineup

With that 4-2 victory over Brentford, we finally had a glimpse of the beloved West Ham United after a depressing eight-game losing streak. But was it merely a passing fad or an indication of things to come?

To be honest, the verdict on Moyes is still pending. We can all agree that the match on Saturday against Everton is vitally important, and the management made the right option in choosing to cling onto that contract extension.

The gaffer has flirted with the sack before, but this time he’s on the road to redemption. Even though Brentford’s victory was a good beginning, it won’t mean much if we don’t improve upon it when we play Everton tomorrow.

In the Brentford rout, Jarrod Bowen was the star of the show. He eventually scored his first senior hat-trick after 15 career braces, making history as the first Hammers player to score a Premier League hat-trick at the London Stadium.

Emerson Palmieri’s screamer was equally beautiful, and happily it guaranteed that the six-goal drama wouldn’t be ruined by goals from Yoane Wissa and Neal Maupay.

It feels nice to have our first victory of the year, and our league position is starting to look a little better. We’re up to eighth place and only a whisker away from qualifying for Europe because of Brighton & Hove Albion’s marginally superior goal differential.

We had a taste of continental football last season with to our Europa Conference League victory, but this year we have to earn it through our Premier League play.

But let’s hold off on making assumptions just now. In our past four away games, we have failed to win. To make matters worse, during this miserable run, we have failed to score a single goal in three of those four games.

The match against Everton at Goodison Park is the ideal opportunity to make a change. Even though we still need to make up for that 1-0 loss we suffered at home in October, getting three points is vital to our chances of qualifying for Europe.

Group News

Lucas Paqueta, who hasn’t played since suffering a calf injury in December, returned to the team on Monday, so we’re taking a fully healthy squad to Goodison Park.

Kalvin Phillips, a City loanee who has struggled thus far, is back in the mix after serving his one-game suspension for the red card against Nottingham Forest.

Everyone is now wondering if Moyes will offer him another chance at atonement or let Edson Alvarez maintain his position.

Alvarez faces a two-match punishment after just one more yellow card, but knowing the manager, he’ll likely stay with the reliable Mexican and let Phillips wriggle on the sidelines.

Potential starting lineup:

Having a fully fit roster to select from, we predict Moyes will continue with the starting lineup that destroyed Brentford the previous Saturday.

We’ll be closely monitoring Bowen in the hopes that he can build on his goal-scoring exploits from the previous week and lead us to yet another significant victory.

(4-2-3-1): Alphonse Areola; Vladimir Coufal, Konstantinos Mavropanos, Kurt Zouma (c), Emerson Palmieri; Tomas Soucek, Edson Alvarez; Mohamed Kudus, James Ward-Prowse, Lucas Paqueta; J. Bowen.

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