West Ham had an excellent transfer window, which translated into an even better start to the season, notably beating both Brighton and Chelsea, but they face the biggest challenge the Premier League has to offer this weekend.
Manchester City have won all four of their opening games but have noticeable absentees in Kevin De Bruyne, Jack Grealish, John Stones and Mateo Kovacic. While David Moyes has confirmed that the Hammer’s have a fully fit squad heading into the fixture.
The Scotsman also had big news regarding the new permanent captain of his side, as well as speaking about how happy he is with his team’s start to the season.
Big changes
After the start to the season the east London side have had, it should come as no surprise that David Moyes is keen to keep things the same, and one way he plans on doing this is by keeping the captain the same.
Kurt Zouma has been immense so far, with his stand out performance being against Luton where he was a brick wall at the back and even managed to score the winning goal. His tenure as captain has seen his side go undefeated and securing the clubs best start to a top-flight season in nearly 25 years.
“Kurt will continue as captain,” Moyes announced.
“He’s done a good job, we’ve won three and drawn one of the opening four games, so he will continue in the role.”
On top of Zouma becoming captain, there has been big changes in regards to the clubs staff. Over the past year many of Moyes' coaches have left and he took his time to make sure he brought in the right men for the job.
He stated the importance of recruiting someone who knew ‘The West Ham away’ well.
“I lost Paul Nevin and Mark Warburton in the summer so Mark Robson has come up from the Under-21s and I think it is really important we continue to promote from inside the club as well.
“Johnny Heitinga has joined and we’ve also got Henry Newman too, who has been one of our analysts for a couple of years, and someone who I felt deserved the opportunity to step up.
"We’ve added to the staff behind the scenes and, the way football is going and the preparation that we’ve got to do, I’m going to need them all.”
An incredible start
West Ham’s 10 points in their opening four games is their best start to a Premier League season in many years, and they’ve already got a quarter of what they finished on last season.
Undoubtedly, it’s incredibly impressive but that’s not even considering the difficulty of the fixtures that have been played.
“We’ve had three out of four away games in our first four games, which is a really tough run in the Premier League. For us to have done three away, and got the results we have, is excellent.”
He continued to praise his side for showing “resilience” and how the performances are something the Hammers can build upon.
“For me, the big thing is we’ve scored goals,” he added.
”And we look like we’re going to score goals. If that continues then we give ourselves a great chance of continuing to pick up points.”
The difficulty of City
There was actually concern surrounding some of the home side’s players during the international break. Both James Ward-Prowse and Edson Alvarez picked up knocks but Moyes eased fans' minds by verifying that “we’re hoping that we’ll have everybody fit and available.”
Despite the aforementioned injuries for the away side, any game against City is never going to be anything but difficult.
They’ve got world class players who can replace those who are injured and those watching the game would barely notice they were gone. According to David Moyes, this ability to overcome any challenge is largely down to Pep Guardiola.
The veteran manager stated that he believes “it’s between Pep and Sir Alex Ferguson” for the greatest manager ever.
“There are lots and lots of great managers, and I think Sir Alex would always challenge anybody with his record,” he claimed.
“But what Pep had brought to football in the last 15 years has changed the game. He’ll continue to win trophies because he’s got a good team with good players.”
It’s hard to dispute the superiority that the Citizens have over West Ham, even with their injuries.
Nevertheless, with 60,000 excited fans at the London Stadium, as well as the confidence the squad currently has, there is no reason that West Ham can not surprise even themselves and get yet another shock result.
The two European champions both look to extend their unbeaten runs and both managers will know how tough of a fixture this really is.