West Ham United’s u23’s will hope to bounce back with a win against a struggling Porto side this Tuesday night.
Playing their first group game of the season West Ham will be hoping to put one over the Portuguese side. They find themselves in Group A alongside the youth teams of fellow English side Southampton and Croatian outfit Dinamo Zagreb. Southampton currently top the group, having played twice already in the competition collecting four points.
Last time out
The Hammers come into this fixture facing a run of poor form to rival their senior counterparts. They have collected just two wins this season against Tottenham Hotspur and Swansea City respectively, being beaten by Leicester City in their last outing by three goals to nil.
Goals inside the opening 21 minutes from City’s Tyrese Shade, Fousseni Diabate and Callum Elder were enough to put the East Londoners to the sword as Leicester remained above them in the table. West Ham now sit 13th after 10 games played thus far.
Grady Diangana and Joe Powell were both unavailable due to their first team commitments and there has been no word of a return for either player for the game tomorrow.
Opponents
Porto B will be a tough test for United, having won the competition in consecutive seasons. They beat Arsenal in the final in May with Madi Queta scoring the only goal of the game just ten minutes in.
However it is not as bad it looks for West Ham. Porto B themselves have only won one game in their last six. Finding themselves bottom of the Segunda Liga, the Portugeuse blew a two goal lead this last weekend to FC Famalicão despite the latter going down to nine men with Queta and Diogo Leite netting the goals for Porto before being hit with four without reply in the second half. Their last win came against Académico de Viseu FC at the start of September, Rui Costa netting the winning goal inside the last 25 minutes.
This will no doubt be an important game for both teams as they both look to finally kick-start their season after difficult starts.
