The Hammers won their final match of pre-season against Dutch outfit Vitesse Arnhem at Roots Hall tonight thanks to a first half strike from Freddie Kanoute.
The French striker scored the only goal in what proved to be a fairly dour encounter after 26 minutes, when the excellent Joe Cole worked a shooting opportunity for his team mate after some imaginative trickery on the perimeter of the area.The Hammers, preparing for the forthcoming visit to Newcastle on Monday week (19th August) fielded just about the strongest team possible, with the notable inclusion of new signing Edouard Cisse, who had a fairly uneventful debut. He was replaced at half-time by Richard Garcia, who looked extremely sharp during his 45-minutes on the pitch.
Arnhem's best chance of a goal came in the final few minutes, when David James could only watch a 20-yard shot fizz narrowly past his right-hand post. Apart from that, and one or two half-chances and snap-shots the visitors were poor value for money.
A full match report will follow soon ...
West Ham United: James; Schemmel (Breen 65), Pearce (Johnson 79), Dailly, Winterburn (McCann 84); Cole (Moncur 71), Cisse (Garcia 45), Carrick, Sinclair; Defoe (Sofiane 83), Kanoute (Camara 77).
Subs not used: Van Der Gouw, Courtois, Forde.
Vitesse Arnhem: Jevric, Cornelisse, Stefanovic, Knol (Zeman 69), Mbamba, Janssen, Martel (Riga 57), Levchenko, Peeters, Nanu, Sone.
Subs not used: Frankel, Van Beukering, Van Fessem, Hofs, Amoah
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