West Ham United travel to Stoke City on Saturday aiming to maintain their place in the top four of the Premier League.
Sam Allardyce's side have been one of the surprise packages of the season so far sitting in fourth spot with 16 points from their opening nine games.
Team news
Stoke will be without Peter Crouch and Phil Bardsley for the visit of West Ham through suspension
Crouch is banned having been sent off in midweek against Southampton, while summer signing Bardsley has already picked up five bookings resulting in a suspension.
Jon Walters will be hoping to start in attack in the absence of Crouch, while Geoff Cameron could revert to right-back to full in for Bardsley.
Glenn Whelan and Peter Odemwingie are long-term absentees for Mark Hughes as they recover from a broken leg and knee injury respectively.
Diafra Sakho will be assessed as late as Saturday morning as Sam Allardyce gives the West Ham striker as much time as possible to prove his fitness for their game at Stoke.
The in-form forward injured a shoulder in the 2-1 win over Manchester City last week and it remains to be seen if he is risked at the Britannia Stadium despite scoring six goals in as many Premier League starts.
James Tomkins and Matt Jarvis return to the squad after both recovered from thigh injuries but Guy Demel remains sidelined with Mauro Zarate (thigh) a doubt and Andy Carroll not in contention despite returning to training following ankle surgery.
Paul Merson's prediction
I never like going against Stoke, who had a bad result in the Capital One Cup and will miss Peter Crouch after he got sent off. He will be a big miss, there’s no doubt about that. West Ham are going to go there and have a go with the confidence they are playing with at the moment, so there should be goals. However, it’s a hard place to go, so I’m going to go for a Desmond.
PAUL PREDICTS: 2-2
Last edited by Admin on Sat 01 Nov 2014, 1:16 pm; edited 1 time in total