Good afternoon and welcome to live coverage of West Ham’s opening Premier League match of the 2021/22 season.
The Hammers get the new season underway with a trip to St James’ Park to take on Steve Bruce’s Newcastle United hoping to avenge their two defeats at the hands of the Magpies last season.
West Ham have been in fine form throughout pre-season but manager David Moyes has warned that results during the summer friendlies mean little once the serious actions gets underway.
The Hammers manager is hoping his team can carry on where they left off after their superb 2020/21 season. Moyes said: “I hope for much of the same and I don’t see any reason why we can’t do it again.
“So we will work very hard to try and achieve it, the players were terrific last season and we had a great season but that is in the past now and we are going to try and make the most of this one.”
West Ham have an almost fully fit squad to choose from with just Angelo Ogbonna, Arthur Masuaku and Manuel Lanzini doubts for today’s match.
New signing Alphonse Areola is in contention for a start but may have to wait for his Hammers Premier League debut with Lukasz Fabianski set to start in goal. West Ham have not added any other major signings this summer but for now the focus is on taking three points from the trip to St James’ Park.
You can follow all the action from this afternoons game with football.london’s West Ham writer Tom Clark in our live blog below