Manuel Pellegrini knew ahead of the Christmas and New Year schedule that he was going to be hard pressed to put out an effective team for all the matches, his problem has been made more acute as both his 'general' in defence, Fabian Balbuena, and his forward Chicharito look increasingly unlikely to feature in the first of four games in ten days tonight at St Mary's against a ressurgent Southampton side. Whether they will be available for the following games against Burnley and Brighton, or the FA Cup match against Birmingham or indeed for the Premier League match against Arsenal is a matter of some conjecture.
Hammers medical team, despite the urgent need to bring players back from injury, will be loathe to rush players back only for them to break down again, an all too similar scenario back in West Ham's past history. Hopefully there patience will pay off and Manuel Pellegrini will begin to have player selection problems for all the right reasons. Right now he has to bide his time and use all of his considerable experience to dove tail players in to filling in and adapting, but his hands are tied!
Most teams in the Premier League would miss players of the quality of Yarmolenko, Lanzini, Reid, Wilshere, Fredericks, Arnoutovic, Hernandez and now Balbuena, Hammers have just got to limp over the line until players begin to return during the 'frenzied four' fixtures. There is no point in rushing players back, however it is really essential to try and keep on the shirt tails of the top eight if the club is going to go in to the second half of the season on a high, occupying the sort of league position that warrants this summers massive expenditure.
People say luck evens itself out during the season, if that's true Hammers will not pick up anymore injuries and Tottenham will have their entire team injured in the next 19 games, however this is West Ham, need we say more? - Ed
