By all accounts, the Hammers have done a fine job of making it seem like a genuine football ground rather than a dressed-up athletics arena.
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Eight minutes later, West Ham hit the front when Antonio headed in Gokhan Tore’s cross to the far post. That victory was from the only competitive game they’ve played in Stratford, a 3-0 win over Domzale.
West Ham, meantime, could draw a great many positives from their narrow 2-1 defeat at Chelsea on Monday night.
Bilic is without record signing Andre Ayew, who will be out for months with a thigh injury.
It leaves Bilic with just Enner Valencia, Ashley Fletcher and new boy Jonathan Calleri as his senior options with Diafra Sakho still regaining full fitness after recovering from a back injury. – Antonio has scored a joint-league high seven headed goals since the start of 2015-16, level with Arsenal’s Olivier Giroud. We were pushing and wanted it more.
“It’s not the first time when an injury of this scale has two opinions and solutions”, he was quoted as saying by the club at a press conference held on Friday afternoon.
The Hammers welcomed the Premier League into their new home for the first time and got off to a winning start when Antonio crashed in a header five minutes from time.
Bilic was desperate for West Ham to get that first win under their belt as quickly as possible but unfortunately for him the new era had begun with some all-too-familiar news, with perennially-injured Andy Carroll having been ruled out for up to six weeks with knee damage. As a result – Bournemouth lost 1: 3. Wide threat Junior Stanislas won’t be fit to face his former club. Their fans will be hoping their opening weekend loss to Manchester United isn’t a sign of what is to come.
All hope is not lost for the Hammers.
Bournemouth have work to do to improve, they haven’t kept a clean sheet in the league since March, a run which has stretched to 11 games. “He is a really good player and he proved it previous year against us, not just with his hat-trick, but with his quality all season”. This game will also be shown on Sky with a 4 pm kick off. On that basis, I’d certainly back overs at [1.86].
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Matches last season between West Ham and Bournemouth passed over effectively.
