Preview: Liverpool vs West Ham

Alan Pardew’s men travel to Anfield today in a replay of what was one of the best FA Cup Final’s of recent times as Liverpool take on West Ham at home with a 12:45 kickoff.

The memories of Cardiff will certainly be fresh and it should be a high-energy contest this lunch time. Rafa looks set to hand a debut to Dirk Kuyt though whether he starts or not is another thing.

Bobby Zamora is on form for West Ham, already with three goals to his name this season bringing some good firepower to West Ham’s front line, while Dean Ashton is out with a broken ankle. Liverpool too are looking at their casulty list containing Gabriel Paletta, Stephen Warnock, John Arne Riise, Jamie Carragher and Momo Sissoko. That said, we should see Gerrard, Alonso, Gonzalez and Garcia start across the middle with Finnan, Hyypia, Kromkamp and Danny Agger holding up the back line.

Liverpool need to focus today, need to concentrate. The 1-1 start to the season was a little disappointing and with West Ham already having two good games under their belt, including beating Charlton 3-1 on the opening day, they will certainly be fired up for this league battle.

Liverpool, for their part, are looking to stretch a good defensive record at Anfield since finishing last season with 16 games unbeaten at home (14 wins and 2 draws) - a run stretching back to last October when we were hammered 4-1 by Chelsea. With Champions League qualification now out of the way now is the time to be concentrating on the league performance and getting this season off to a good start.

Theres coverage of the game on TV and on LiverpoolFC.tv, updates here on LiverpoolAccess.com where possible.

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