West Ham United’s boss, David Moyes, has officially selected the squad to represent West Ham in the UEFA Europa League group stages.
Let that opening line sink in for a minute. Feels good doesn’t it? The Hammers Europa League campaign begins on Thursday, September 16th with an away day to Zagreb. Leading up to the start of the competition, each club is required to send in their squads, and West Ham has.
David Moyes has selected his 23 man squad. We’ll call it the A squad, because Moyes then will submit a B list of young players by 11 pm the day prior to each match. Out of those 23 players, both Ben Johnson and Winston Reid haven’t been listed on it. Johnson is in luck however because of his age, he can still get added to the B squad before a match.
The B list is a list of players born on, or after, 1 January 2000 and has been eligible to play for West Ham for any uninterrupted period of two years since their 15th birthday. Confusing right? With that rule in place, Johnson is good whereas Reid isn’t. Despite not making an appearance for West Ham since 2018, Reid remains at the club, but has been omitted from the Europa squad.
David Moyes names West Ham United’s first Europa League squad
West Ham had a busy transfer window, although frustrating. Out of the new players in Claret and Blue, all four of their senior signings have made the list. Alphonse Areola, Alex Kral, Nikola Vlasic, and Kurt Zouma are all included in David Moyes’ squad. Major point of note, is that all four of them arrive in East London with European experience behind them.
David Moyes’ Full West Ham Europa League A Squad
Goalkeepers
Alphonse Areola, Lukasz Fabianski, David Martin, Darren Randolph.
Defenders
Vladimir Coufal, Aaron Cresswell, Craig Dawson, Issa Diop, Ryan Fredericks, Arthur Masuaku, Angelo Ogbonna,and Kurt Zouma.
Midfielders
Pablo Fornals, Alex Kral, Mark Noble, Declan Rice, Tomas Soucek, and Nikola Vlasic.
Forwards
Michail Antonio, Said Benrahma, Jarrod Bowen, Manuel Lanzini, and Andriy Yarmolenko.
The Hammers have been graced with a good Group to be a part of. West Ham should progress to the knock-out stages of either the Europa League or the Europa Conference League after the group stage dust settles. If and when this happens, David Moyes can add three new players if he pleases, but the limit still remains at 25 players per club.