West Ham Preview

West Ham feature today in The Guardian's Premier League Preview. The analysis of West Ham's current strengths and weaknesses is pretty fair - it is a bit surprising then that the paper ends up predicting a 16th place for West Ham in the league this season. Especially when they also say,

"The quality is there in West Ham's squad to make a decent fist of things among the second tier of Premier League clubs, and maybe even to push on for a Uefa Cup spot."

The Guardian notice that West Ham lack decent cover up front, "If Ashton is absent and Bellamy is having one of his leaner spells, it's still hard to see exactly where the goals are going to come from."

The analysis is rather let down however by the claim that the squad's weakness "is the continuing absence of a regular left-back.". Actually McCartney was hardly ever absent last season.

Elsewhere captain Lucas Neill says that West Ham are aiming for a top eight finish,

"Tenth was probably more than we deserved. But this season you will probably see the West Ham everyone wanted to see last term.

"Finishing in the top six is achievable but we're going to focus on the top eight and hope we're there or thereabouts.

"The squad - on paper - can compete with the teams around us trying to obtain fourth, fifth or sixth spot."