An encouraging pre-season so far with the Irons scoring six at Celtic yesterday. We can't read too much into it, though it was good to see the great dummy Benrahma sold the Celtic defender before his goal. Antonio got a brace, though as ever we won't be able to rely on his hamstrings all season. Also nice to see young signing Armstrong Oko-Flex (whose surname sounds rather like an extension lead for my laptop) score against his former club. He could be one for the future. Conor Coventry has also been getting some pre-season games and is looking stronger and might be a useful squad player.
Even without Lingard it looked like the Hammers could field a strong first X1 but we're going to need a much bigger squad this season. Moves for WBA's Johnstone or former Fulham loanee Areola from PSG are on the right lines to finding a successor to Fabianski. But we still need another centre back, a central midfielder, maybe a winger and definitely two new strikers to back-up Antonio (Harry Kane might be a bit pricey at £160m though I'm sure David Sullivan might make a late bid for £10 million). And of course we have to keep Declan Rice. So plenty to work on before the window closes on Aug 31.
