The Hammers pick up where they left off at the London Stadium, taking on Manchester City in the first Premier League game of the 2022/2023 season on 7th August. Of course, the sides had a very emotional previous meeting as West Ham celebrated Mark Noble’s final home appearance. The game finished 2-2, with Riyad Mahrez missing a penalty right at the death.
Since then, both the Hammers and their visitors have made significant moves in the transfer window, with Manchester City adding Erling Haaland, Kalvin Phillips, and Julian Alvarez to their ranks. West Ham boast the signings of Nayef Aguerd, Alphonse Areola, Flynn Downes, and Gianluca Scamacca.
Words from the Boss
Despite an already successful window, David Moyes believes there is still more business to be done. Speaking to whufc.com, Moyes said:
"In my mind, we’re far from finished. I think we have to do an awful lot more than what we’ve done at the moment and hopefully I’ll be able to do that……We didn’t bring any players in in January, so we have to fill these voids and hopefully we can do so, but we want to bring in quality players. We don’t want to just fill it for the sake of filling it, so we are trying to get in the best players we possibly can."
Questions were asked about how Moyes plans to contain Haaland and Pep’s dangerous Manchester City side, to which he answered:
"Manchester City have made some changes in personnel this summer, but I don’t think Pep is ever going to change the way that he and his team plays.I think what they’ve added is a prolific goalscorer [in Erling Haaland], maybe the most up and coming young striker not just in this country, but in the world, so it’ll be interesting.But yet, he is still to come to the Premier League and quite often a lot of the overseas players take a bit of time to settle, so I hope that’s the case on Sunday…… It was one of the plusses last year that we performed much better against the Manchester Citys, Liverpools and Chelseas over the season.But I thought last year we competed a bit more in some of the games against the bigger sides and showed that we could give them a game on any given day."
Predicted Line-Ups
With first summer signing Nayef Aguerd out with injury and Angelo Ogbonna still “three or four weeks” away from first team action, the likely defensive partnership will be Kurt Zouma and Craig Dawson. Latest signing Maxwel Cornet has not been registered in time, and will therefore be unavailable to start against the Premier League champions. Although a part of the team for a few weeks already, Gianluca Scamacca is yet to play a minute of football for his new club. Moyes is “not expecting him to be available this weekend” and is “trying to get him in the best condition to play“.
As for Manchester City, Aymeric Laporte will not be included on Sunday due to undergoing knee surgery. Former West Ham target Nathan Ake is also likely to start after an impressive pre-season. Pep Guardiola confirmed in his pre-match press conference that his team have no other injuries.
Predicted West Ham United XI: Fabianski, Coufal, Dawson, Zouma, Cresswell, Soucek, Rice, Fornals, Lanzini, Bowen, Antonio.
Predicted Manchester City XI: Ederson, Walker, Dias, Ake, Cancelo, Bernardo, Rodri, De Bruyne, Mahrez, Haaland, Grealish.
Where to Watch West Ham United vs Manchester City
You can watch the Hammers first game of the season on Sky Sports Premier League and Main Event from 4pm.
The game kicks off at 4.30pm on Sunday 7th August.