West Ham will be hoping that they can claim another major scalp when they take on current champions Chelsea on Saturday afternoon.
Happy Hammers
It has been an excellent start to Slaven Bilic’s reign at the Hammers as they currently sit just inside the Champions League places in fourth position.
Saturday’s match will give Bilic’s side the opportunity to reduce the gap between them and current leaders Manchester City to just one point with Manuel Pellegrini’s side not playing until Sunday.
Heaps of confidence
Hammers fan couldn’t expect to head into a match of this magnitude with so much confidence of grabbing all three points but with victories over Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City already this season the sky seems to be the limit.
They also showed that they can pull out a victory even when a match doesn’t seem to be going in last week’s clash with Crystal Palace.
Carl Jenkinson gave the Hammers the lead before Yohan Cabaye levelled from the penalty spot, it looked to be heading for a draw but late goals from Manuel Lanzini and Dimtri Payet secured all three points and kept up their excellent recent results.
Optimistic Chelsea
Fans of the champions will be hoping that this will not be another false dawn for their side as they look for their first back-to-back victories of the season with their trip to the Boleyn Ground.
It is easy to say that this period at Stamford Bridge has been the most difficult of Mourinho’s career as his side currently sit 10 points behind City in 11th positon and will be looking to close the gap on Saturday.
Villa bypassed
Confidence was boosted last week when they managed to bypass Tim Sherwood’s Aston Villa. The returning Diego Costa made a big impact scoring his first goal since the end of his suspension and a howler from Alan Hutton secured Chelsea’s third win of the campaign.
However they took yet another backwards step midweek when they were held to a goalless draw with Dynamo Kiev.
Team News
Bilic’s only real major absentee will be defender Winston Reid with the New Zealand international still recovering from a hip injury.
Striker Enner Valencia could earn a start against the champions despite not playing in the league so far through injury as a replacement for Victor Moses as he is ineligible to play against his parent club.
Mourinho could decide to name an unchanged back four from the game in the Ukraine midweek with Kurt Zouma expected to keep his place as right-back with doubts still remaining over the fitness of Bratisalv Ivanovic.
Pedro’s fitness has also been called into question which could see the return of Eden Hazard whose future at the club has been seriously called into question within the past week.
West Ham will host Chelsea at the Boleyn Ground on Saturday, October 24 with kick-off at 3PM BST.