At 3pm today West Ham take on Preston North End at Deepdale, and it will be an emotional return for Jordan Hugill, who David Moyes paid £10 million for in January. At the time it seemed rather a lot of money for a Championship striker who had a strike rate of just under 1 goal every 5 games. Since then Hugill has appeared in only three first team games and hasn’t troubled the scorers in the few minites that he’s played.
I feel rather sorry for him. He’s obviously keen to succeed but he’s been put in a position where he can’t really prove himself, so I hope he plays the majority of the game this afternoon. It’s going to be difficult to recoup £10 million and the most likely outcome is for him to be loaned out to a Championship club. QPR and Nottingham Forest seem to be the most likely destinations.
We might see Felipe Anderson and Jack Wilshere making their debuts this afternoon, while Ryan Fredericks and Aaron Cresswell have recovered from knocks. I imagine we’ll see Diop and Balbuena form a central defensive partnership as it looks like Pellegrini sees them as his first choice pairing.