David Moyes has confirmed he will send out a young, experimental West Ham side to face FCSB in Bucharest in their final Conference League Group game.
Hammers boss Moyes said a host of senior players have not travelled to the Romanian capital with qualification for the last 16 already guaranteed.
The likes of Declan Rice, Jarrod Bowen, Tomas Soucek and Kurt Zouma are all understood not to have travelled, while youngsters such as Freddie Potts – the son of former Hammers skipper Steve Potts – Keenan Forson and Oliver Scarles may be involved.
But West Ham could still make a small slice of history by becoming the first team in the Conference League to win all six of their group matches.
“The biggest motivation for us is that we’ve won the group and we now need to finish it off,” Moyes said at his pre-match press conference.
“We’re going to give some of the younger players an opportunity in the game. We’ve left the bulk of the players back home and we’re looking forward to the game.
“There are still a lot of senior players involved and they all want to be playing, so hopefully we can go to FCSB and get that sixth victory.
“We’re not full of young players, but there are a couple of young players that are going to start tomorrow night.
“We’re going to give them an opportunity, and maybe some of the others will get an opportunity as well, because in some of the other games we weren’t able to do so.
“We hope we can do that, but we still want to win the game and we still want to finish the group off well.
“Last year we won the group but, with Dinamo Zagreb at home, we didn’t quite win that last game. But this is another opportunity for us and the players have done great to put us in this position.”
One senior player set to be involved is defender Nayef Aguerd, who impressed on his debut against Silkeborg in the previous fixture on his return from four months out injured.
“We hope Nayef can play again, hopefully as long as he can,” added Moyes. “We’re trying to get him back and these games have been really good for him.
“We included him in the squad from the start because we hoped he might be available for the last couple of games and that’s the way it’s proved to be. Hopefully we can get him another good part of a game under his belt.”
