West Ham United held an open training session at their Rush Green training ground on Wednesday morning ahead of their Europa Conference League clash with Anderlecht on Thursday night.
The Hammers go into the game top of Group B by five points and could seal top spot and qualification for the round of 16 with two games to spare tomorrow if they win against the Belgians and Silkeborg fail to beat FCSB in Group B’s other match.
Football.london got a glimpse of the Hammers’ pre-match preparations during training on Wednesday and here are some of the moments spotted in the session.
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Trio absent
Of the 24 senior players currently at the club, 21 trained, while under-21s goalkeeper Krisztian Hegyi also joined the group for the main training session.
Winger Maxwel Cornet (calf) and centre-back Nayef Aguerd (ankle) were both seen together on the sidelines as they both recover from their respective injuries, although Aguerd did briefly do some keepie-uppies prior to the start of the main group training.
However, striker Michail Antonio, who came off the bench to score against Fulham on Sunday, was not in training or seen on the sidelines. Antonio would have been expected to start up front against Anderlecht, although his absence may now throw this into doubt.
Run Gianluca, run!
Spirits are really high across the camp, undoubtedly helped by three straight wins in all competitions heading into the return meeting with Anderlecht.
Towards the end of a relaxed rondo prior to a lap of the pitch and some warm-up work, a large group of players, including Gianluca Scamacca, Lucas Paqueta, Pablo Fornals, Tomas Soucek, Vladimir Coufal and Manuel Lanzini all played a game of keeping the ball in the air.
Right at the end, Scamacca, tried to keep the ball but just missed out on finding his teammate, leading to a few of his players jokingly chasing after him.
Ballon Dawson
Towards the end of open training, there was plenty of love for centre-back Craig Dawson during a keep-ball drill.
Fresh off winning a penalty against Fulham at the weekend, Dawson was being used as a playmaker in the role and with some success. Declan Rice shouted “love it Daws,” while Aaron Cresswell threw out a shout of “Ballon Dawson,” in honour of the Ballon d’Or award given to the world’s best player every year.
Spirits in general among the squad right now are high and it has been helped by Dawson’s return from injury, with West Ham winning all four games he has started in since coming back from an injury that kept him out of the opening weeks of the season.
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