Going into it this seems like a tough one. We used to moan when Rafa made tons of changes, and now we moan when he doesn´t. I couldn´t watch the game last night so correct me if I´m wrong but it seems like we were pretty average, and a few of the players maybe could have used a rest. Rafa surely has everything planned out though so I won´t second guess him for the moment.
Two big positives then going into the match:
1) Two clean sheets in a row, both of them with Carra-Skrtel in central defense. Hopefully these two can form a solid defensive base for the next little while. At the start of last year they were very solid, and helped us keep picking up results even when we weren´t scoring loads of goals. Even when we´ve played poorly this year we´ve scored, so if things get tough I can see us picking up a cheeky 1-0, at the start of the season I didn´t have that confidence.
2) West Ham under Zola like to play football, we won´t see ten men behind the ball, holding out for a draw. In these types of games we almost always do well. Our counter attacking football is excellent and with players as intelligent as Dirk, Benny, Stevie, and Nando, any spaces left open at the back will be punished.
