Lucas Neill is back with West Ham United after a successful international break for him with Australia and also for his club-mates. The captain is fully expecting the side to bounce back from last week's setback with another strong home display.
Last week's result was bitterly disappointing, and left a bad taste in our mouths, the goal we conceded was avoidable and the level of football we had to resort to was very much out of character. Without trying to find excuses, Wigan's pitch is an embarrassment to the Premier League. People pay good money to travel to watch entertaining games and instead find themselves watching professional players slicing the ball out of play with regularity as a result of the playing surface. It really affected our passing style of play and on the day we were unable to adjust our game to get the result which would have seen us climb the table.
As a result this weekend nothing but a win will do, we are three wins from three at home in the league and we must continue that run. I welcome the fans, staff and players of Birmingham to Upton Park. They need a win for different reasons so I am sure it will be a hard-fought and physical contest.
A lot has happened this week on the international scene, Matty Upson played a full game and was victorious for England and I am led to believe he had a solid performance. Johnny Pantsil suffered a narrow loss in the Africa Cup of Nations semi-final with Ghana, but we wish him well for the third placed play-off. Mark Noble helped lead the Under-21s to the top of their qualifying group and congrats to young Jack Collison as well who was an impressive scorer for the Welsh Under-21s and is showing that he has a bright future in the game. Finally I finished off a busy week with a 3-0 win in our first World Cup qualifier against Qatar. It made the 46 hours of travelling worthwhile.
This week we welcome back Henri Camara from a disappointing Africa Cup of Nations campaign but it was good to see him back in training. We saw Bobby Zamora get some more match fitness under his belt and we are hopeful of having his services by the end of the month. Scotty Parker stepped up his rehabilitation with some light jogging and, to put the record straight, Julien Faubert maintains the fact he did not speak to any reporters and undermine the manager or the team with the quotes that were used in the press this week.
Lucas Neill