Match Preview West Ham v Villa

Who are we playing?
West Ham United

Where are we playing?
Upton Park, Saturday 3pm

Can I go?
Unless you've bagged a ticket already, no chance. The away end has been sold out for ages.

Can I watch it live on the telly?
If you are in the UK then not legally, no. Plenty of pubs will showing on their dodgy dishes though.

Still the Daddy? We don't think so.

Do West Ham have any famous fans?

Well, there's Ray Winstone, which, once upon a time, we would have thought was pretty cool, but those god-awful Bet 365 ads and a truly terrible movie version of The Sweeney have somewhat tarnished "the Daddy's" reputation. Any road up, we've got David Bradley - about to star as the original Doctor Who - so we win the battle of the celebs.

Even Doctor Who supports the Villa

Who's playing for us?
You know how Lambo likes to play his cards close to his chest, so it's always hard to say, but Gabby appears to a major doubt with his ankle, while Tony Moon and his understudy Joe Bennett are ruled out, leaving us with a massive issue at left back


If Gabby can't play, Helenius and Kozak are both possibles or we may even push Tonev up and bring in Sylla or El Ahmadi. Left back options would include playing Nathan Baker on that side, recalling Matt Lowton and switching Bacuna to the left or even a shock recall for bomb squad member Dame Edna Stevens - a player who couldn't hold down a place in a struggling Notts County side.

The fact is, Lambert is rapidly running out of defenders.

Who's playing for them?
They are quite likely to pack the midfield, not being over-endowed with natural strikers and missing the mercurial talents of Andy Carroll. Ravel Morrison has been something of a revelation this season, while Vaz Te's dislocated shoulder means that Carlton Cole might be the striker that comes in to haunt us. Matt Taylor and James Tomkins picked up injuries against Burnley in the cup and are unlikely to feature.

Any useless stats?
Of course, here you go:

• We won 2-1 in our last meeting with the Hammers back in February at Villa Park, though an Ashley Westwood own goal just minutes from full time had us biting our nails at the end.

• Our last victory at the Boleyn came in April 2011, beating them 2-1 thanks to a last gasp winner from substitute Gabby Agbonlahor

• The Hammers knocked Villa out of the FA Cup at the quarter final stage in 1980 en route to winning the final. We were robbed by the ref!  David Cross knocked Ken McNaught's arm onto the ball and hapless referee David Richardson gave the cocky cockneys an undeserved penalty which some of us are still fuming about thirty three years later...

• Villa's first competitive meeting with West Ham came in the FA Cup second round in 1913. We "hammered" them 5-0 and two of the goals came from Harold Halse.

He said, She said...

Lambo on Weimann: "He is a really fit lad".

Lambo on the left back situation: "Antonio is struggling with his hamstring at the minute. He'll be a few weeks out. Joe Bennett has a sore back at the minute so we'll see how he is.

"You have to take the chance and whoever comes in, I'm pretty sure they won't let anybody down."

Big Sam: "We've got the worst conversion rate in the Premier League at the moment according to our statisticians so we've got to make that better."

More Big Sam: "I think Paul [Lambert] will probably be a bit disappointed recently with the points that he's gained from the teams they've played and he has our problem of failing to secure enough points at home"

Prediction:
You never know what you're gonna get with Big Sam's West Ham, but we think that - if we have our shooting boots on - we'll have enough to get a win in the big smoke. It's not like we'll have Villaparkophobia to worry about.