Boro vs West Ham

After a very poor start to the season Boro have hit a rich vein of form. They have won five out of their last nine premiership games and qualified for the semi-finals of the UEFA and FA Cup.

For this dress rehearsal for next Sunday's game West Ham will again be without Anton Ferdinand (now looking doubtful for the semi-final). Boro may welcome back Viduka and Hasselbaink, who were rested yesterday. However Boro's two semi-final clashes against Steaua Bucharest sandwich the West Ham game and McClaren will have to rest players at some point, the league fixture against West Ham is the least important game out of the four, so we can expect some changes

West Ham go into this match in seventh place and Pardew has stated his ambition to finish seventh or above, so the Hammers will not want to give anything away in this game. Hopefully the Boro players' minds will be on their upcoming UEFA game and West Ham can capitalise on this.