West Ham will look to kickstart their Europa Conference League group stage campaign in style as they welcome Romanian side FCSB to the London Stadium on Thursday evening.
FCSB are a successor club to the government-owned Steaua Bucharest that won the European Cup in 1986 under Nicolae Ceauşescu’s Communist regime in Romania but were taken over by a group of private shareholders in 1998. The club were then forced to change their name to FCSB in 2017 due to an ongoing conflict with CSA Steaua București sports club, which is still owned by the Ministry of National Defence, who claim the football club is a new and separate entity.
None of this will particularly affect the Hammers as they look to build on a 6-1 aggregate victory over Danish side Viborg in the qualifying round and David Moyes will be targeting the Conference League as a winnable competition after reaching the Europa League semi-finals last term.
It has been a slightly slow start to the campaign for West Ham, who currently sit in the Premier League relegation zone, but their opponents are also struggling on the domestic front, with just one win from their first seven games to lie 13th out of 16 teams in the Romanian top tier.
Here’s everything you need to know ahead of the opening match of the group stage.
When is West Ham vs FCSB?
The match will kick off at 8pm BST on Thursday 8 September. It will be played at the London Stadium in Stratford.
How can I watch it?
It will be shown live on BT Sport 2 with coverage starting at 7.45pm. It will be also streamed live on the BT Sport website and mobile app for BT Sport customers.
Team news
David Moyes could stick with the three at the back he deployed against Chelsea at the weekend or revert to a back four, although ultimately the personnel of the starting XI will likely remain similar. Declan Rice’s two-match European ban is over so he could slot into the midfield alongside either Manuel Lanzini or Flynn Downes, presuming Tomas Soucek is rested. Craig Dawson has returned to full training but may not play from the start, while fellow centre-back Nayef Aguerd is a long-term injury absence and full-backs Aaron Cresswell and Ben Johnson are serious doubts as they battle ongoing muscle injuries.
For FCSB, left-back Ionuţ Panţîru, midfielder Adrian Șut, winger Andrei Dumiter, defender Iulian Cristea and defensive midfielder Ovidiu Popescu are all ruled out with knee injuries. Andrea Compagno may keep his place up top ahead of Bogdan Rusu and Ianis Stoica after scoring in their most recent fixture.
Predicted line-ups
West Ham XI: Areola; Coufal, Kehrer, Ogbonna, Palmieri; Rice, Lanzini; Cornet, Paqueta, Bowen; Scamacca
FCSB XI: Tarnovanu; Pantea, Tamm, Dawa, Radunovic; Dulca, Edjouma; Cordea, Miculescu, Coman; Compagno
Odds
West Ham: 1/5
Draw: 5/1
FCSB: 11/1
Prediction
This is a competition that West Ham will have significant designs on winning and even though David Moyes may rotate his team, they should be far too strong for their Romanian foes. West Ham 4-1 FCSB
