West Ham revealed how their pre-season will start, with friendlies against Ipswich Town and Wycombe Wanderers announced earlier today following a training camp in Scotland.
Manager David Moyes will lead his team up to his home country next week for an intense five-day training camp before the West Ham plays their first friendlies of pre-season simultaneously.
Moyes will split his team into two groups – one to play at Ipswich Town on Tuesday, August 25 at 2 pm GMT+1, and one to play at Wycombe Wanderers at the exact same time.
Ipswich Town
Ipswich Town finished League One in 11th last season after the final table was decided on a points-per-game basis.
Former Premier League manager Paul Lambert is at the helm, and towards the end of last season, mostly lined up with three at the back and a narrow midfield.
But he does like to keep his opponents guessing at times and isn’t averse to changing his style, tactics and formation depending on their opponent.
Although more than four months ago now, Ipswich stumbled towards lockdown curtailing their season, as they recorded four straight league losses in a row to deny them any hope of reaching the play-offs.
Striker Kayden Jackson will be one to watch out for if he plays – the 26-year-old made 32 appearances for the Blues last season, netting 11 and assisting seven. He was involved in more than a third of Ipswich Town’s goals in the 2019/20 season.
Wycombe Wanderers
Wycombe Wanderers benefited from League One being decided on a PPG system – as they finished the league in third and secured a play-off semi-final against Fleetwood Town.
Wycombe won the first leg 4-1 away at Fleetwood, before being held 2-2 at home to progress 6-3 to the final on aggregate.
And the Chairboys edged out Oxford United at Wembley to secure promotion to the Championship, the first time they have been promoted to the second tier of English football in their history, winning 2-1.
Manager Gareth Ainsworth likes to line up his side in a 4-3-3 formation, and rarely deviates from starting with that setup.
One man to watch out for could be – you guessed it – the effervescent veteran striker Adebayo Akinfenwa.
After the play-off final, he was over the moon to achieve promotion with the side that believed in him, and he repaid Wycombe with ten league goals and 6 assists in 32 appearances, being involved in more than a third of their league goals; he started just over half of those games too.
It will be interesting to see how the Hammers kick off their pre-season against two EFL sides who had very different ends to their seasons.