West Ham star Kurt Zouma has dropped a big hint that he’ll start only his second game in four months vs Aston Villa.
After a 5,000 mile round trip to Cyprus, full focus now turns to what is a huge match against Aston Villa at the London Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
West Ham know they need to pick up at least five wins from their remaining 13 league games to have a chance of staying up.
And the pressure on David Moyes and the Hammers was massively ramped up by results elsewhere yesterday as Bournemouth and Everton both won while Leeds got a point against Brighton.
The game has become huge overnight. It means defeat for West Ham at home to Villa would put us second bottom until we next play at the start of April. And should Southampton get an unlikely win at Man United, West Ham will go rank bottom for at least the next three weeks.
Victory, though, would move West Ham up to 14th and within touching distance of Crystal Palace and Wolves. So there is a lot at stake.
The Hammers have a good recent record against Aston Villa. But Unai Emery’s side go into the match off the back of consecutive league wins.
West Ham’s defending in their last Premier League game left a lot to be desired as they lost 4-0 to Brighton, the team’s biggest and worst defeat under Moyes.
But there appears to be some good news for the Hammers ahead of the game, although it does not come without risk.
Read: Paul Merson predicts West Ham vs Villa and has his say on relegation
Because West Ham star Kurt Zouma has dropped a big hint he’ll start only his second game in four months vs Aston Villa.
Zouma has started just once in the Premier League for West Ham since November.
He returned to the side for the home win against Everton in January after having a knee operation during the World Cup break. But he picked up a new injury which saw him sidelined for another two months.
Moyes said ahead of the game that having Zouma makes West Ham a ‘real and proper’ team.
The Frenchman started the 2-0 win at Larnaca on Thursday night.
And speaking on West Ham’s website, Zouma has revealed that he and Nayef Aguerd have been training ‘for a long time’ on their relationship as central defensive pairing in a back four.
Zouma also states he is ‘here to help’ Aguerd and believes their experience and ability to communicate in English and French can be hugely beneficial to West Ham.
The former Chelsea defender also states that West Ham have other experienced players to come off the bench to help him and Aguerd in a major hint he will be starting alongside the Moroccan against Villa.
“I played alongside Nayef in a back four and we’ve been doing that in training for a long time now and with him, he’s a quality player as we all know, and I am here to help him,” Zouma told the West Ham website.
“He’s here to help me as well and obviously our communication is good because we can talk in French as well. We try to do our best, but the most important thing is the whole team.
“We are quite experienced and we also have other players on the bench who can bring their own experience.”