Well, here is my possibly over-optimistic preview of the season in the Observer. But this squad really should be capable of a top half finish, even with Rice gone. A lot of twitter/X warriors have been catastrophising after the 4-0 friendly defeat at Bayer Leverkuson, wanting to sack Moyes and predicting relegation even before we've kicked off. Yes, it was a poor performance, perhaps partially explained by Billy McKinlay when he revealed the players had to be up at five am to fly to the match. But the main purpose of pre-season friendlies is to get fit and it might even do us a favour in removing any complacency.
West Ham have now agreed a £32 million fee with Ajax for Edson Alvarez (Mexican Rice?) so that would be a significant step forwards. In our last competitive match we won a trophy. So as Graham Taylor once said to Rob Shepherd in Do I Not Like That, "Raise yourself Rob, I can't have long faces like yours round about me, get yourself up man!" And remember the Hammers lost the first three games of last season, which really was a bad start. We can judge the dealings at the end of the window and after the first ten games will have an idea of how the season will go. But for now let's stay positive.
