Winston Reid – West Ham United (English Premier League)

Whaddayaknow, the footy season is upon us and we've already seen a few Flying Kiwis take the park. Chris Wood for Leeds, Ryan Thomas at PEC Zwolle... we'll cover all those fellas but there's one dude who's been in action for a little longer: Winston Reid. With all that Winnie and West Ham are going through heading into the new campaign, the All Whites captain preparing for another massive season, we've given him his own special one-off solo edition.

Having played only 23 time last season, Reidy took the All Whites trip off to see a few specialists and work on his conditioning (plus have a bit of a holiday, to be fair) and the lad’s come through pre-season all good so that’s a decent sign. West Ham, of course, are looking to improve on their seventh place finish last time and Slaven Bilic certainly hasn’t held back in the transfer market there either.

With James Tomkins leaving for Crystal Palace the only major outgoing deal from the first team, the Hammers have brought in seven new players to date with another on loan. The loanee is Turkish winger Gokhan Tore from Besiktas, Tore spent a few years as a youngster with Chelsea but never got a first team go with them – WHU have an option to buy at the end of the loan. Wing was an area they clearly targeted, with Victor Moses back at Chelsea now after his loan ended, and Sofiane Feghouli on a free transfer looks like a brilliant move, the Algerian winger was always a danger man for Valencia. Toni Martinez and Domingo Quina are teenaged strikers, while Ashley Fletcher is a few years older but same deal, he comes in from Manchester United having starred on loan for Barnsley in getting them promoted last season. Havard Nordtveit is a Norwegian holding midfielder, another area of attention, who is also a former Arsenal junior. All of those were cheapies of frees but they did spend a bit of that new cash in other ways…

There ya go, Andre Ayew from Swansea, one of the Swans best players last season. He’s also a former Marseille teammate of Dimitri Payet and, well, Bill Tuiloma. Another striker/winger to work with there, suddenly the Hammers look well-stocked up top. Diafra Sakho is pretty certain to leave, although West Brom pulled out of their £16m move for him. Crystal Palace are another team said to be interested. Getting Manuel Lanzini’s loan deal made permanent was also a sly bit of business.

But they haven’t added at centre back, despite the sale of Tomkins (who’ll re-join his buddy Alan Pardew) which suggests that Reid’s position is under zero threat other than his own health. Between he, Angelo Ogbonna and James Collins, they have three very solid defenders at Premier League level… though it’d make sense if they add another to the group. Maybe Doniel Henry will make the step up? Or Reece Oxford, who’s played there a bit in pre-season and is a regular for the youth team at CB (despite his Premier League appearances mostly being as a defensive midfielder).

Fullback is also a worry and they’ve just gone about treating that by bringing in Frenchman Arthur Masuaku from Olympiakos for £6.2m. That was a necessity, with Sam Byram looking like he’d have to play on the left otherwise. Aaron Cresswell has only missed two PL matches in two seasons but picked up an injury in pre-season that’ll sideline him for four months.

That injury came in a pre-season game against Karlsruher SC. Considering friendlies often carry that element of ‘let’s not get injured’, it was a terrible tackle and less than ten minutes from time. Fair to say Winston was not chill. He got right up in the bugger’s face like he was ready to snap his neck. You don’t mess this this dude, matey.

Pre-season saw them first drop by America where they were beaten 3-0 by Seattle Sounders, who are mid-season themselves. Reid played the first half of that one, as well as 63 mins in their second USA venture, a 2-2 draw with Carolina RailHawks. Mixe game for Winnie there, he scored an own goal early on before levelling soon after with a lovely finish having found himself strangely far up field. Here’s WHUFC.com:

“Fresh from a 4-1 NASL thumping of Joe Cole’s Tampa Bay Rowdies of Saturday evening, the RailHawks started on the front foot and went ahead on 13 minutes. Captain Nasmi Albadawi got to the byline and his cutback was volleyed past Adrian by a stretching Reid. However, the No2 got his side back on level terms eight minutes later when Carroll forced a mistake in the home defence and Reid kept his composure to slot past Akira Fitzgerald.”

They then embarked on a training camp in Austria, which saw them play twice in two days. First a loss draw with FC Slovacko in which goals to Mark Noble and Ashley Fletcher were cancelled out by a double to Eldar Civic in the last five minutes. Winston was one of a number of key players that were rested for that clash, he also took no part in the 3-0 loss to Rubin Kazan the following day. However he played 83 minutes against Karlsruher in a game the Hammers won 3-0.

And then just this last weekend they concluded their pre-season schedule with a one-off home game against Juventus. It wasn’t their first game in the new Olympic Stadium but it was the official opening and a few festivities took place beforehand. A starting line-up of Adrian / Antonio, Ogbonna, Reid, Byram / Nordtveit, Noble, Cullen / Feghouli, Carroll, Valencia was something close to the best they had available (with Payet playing off the bench after getting a longer break post-Euros, otherwise he’d be in there for young Josh Cullen – Ayew and Masuaku as well). Reid got himself the first half in a 3-2 loss before both CBs were replaced with 20 total players seeing the field. He’ll be a little disappointed in himself too, firstly for getting beaten in the air before the first goal and then thoroughly embarrassed after Pablo Dybala put him on his arse for the second.

Andy Carroll scored a couple of goals before Simone Zaza won it for Juve with five to play. Now the focus turns towards the Premier League, where WHU face Chelsea in the opening weekend.

Or… not so fast. Because there’s another focus that the Hammers have as well: The Europa League.

Last time they made it in thanks – incredibly – to their fair play record. That meant they had to start from the top of qualifying and that meant competitive football in June and July, madness. Following a 4-0 aggregate win over Andorran side Lusitanos, West Ham needed penalties to get through the second qualifying round against Birkirkara (Malta) but then blew a 2-0 lead at home to draw 2-2 with Romania’s Astra Giurgiu and lost 2-1 in the away leg to be eliminated.

This time around they got in the old fashioned way, entering at that third round where they drew NK Domzale. The first leg was away from home and Bilic named a strong team to take the park in Slovenia. This game was on July 28, so after the Austrian camp but before the Juve game.

Reid started at CB and played all 90 minutes alongside Havard Nordtveit filling in there. Domzale didn’t get to play at their regular field for whatever reason so there was a crowd of only around 3000 people there to see the Norwegian give away an early spottie for a handball in the box on debut. A debatable one, though West Ham earned a penalty of their own when this fella called Winston Reid got bundled over. Mark Noble slotted it for a crucial away goal. Still, the home (sort of) team responded with another for a 2-1 win. Some sloppy stuff from West Ham in this one, if it weren’t for their keeper they would have lost by more. We did see a debut for 16 year old Domingos Quina though. Slaven Bilic watched this one from the stands because of a touchline ban he had still to serve from last year’s qualifiers.

Anyway, they overturned that defeat in the home game in front of a massive home crowd at the Olympic Stadium. The ground wasn’t 100% done – it was a sold out crowd of 54,000 but there are another 6000 seats to be added to that number before the Chelsea game. And it was a loud crowd too, despite the nerves from the first leg. Luckily those nerves didn’t last because it was only a few minutes before Cheikhou Kouyate flicked in the first ever goal at the stadium. That had them up on away goals and 25 mins in they made it 2-0 on the day, again thanks to Kouyate. Then Feghouli added a third late in the second half and it was never in doubt. Again, Reid got 90 minutes.

Slaven Bilic: "We could have scored more goals, but it was a very mature performance. We played badly in the first leg but a week later we are fresher and closer to the season.”

Reid’s old Danish team FC Midtjylland, who remember faced Manchester United in the tournament last season, also made it through to the final playoff round, as did the likes of Sparta Prague, Panathinaikos, Hajduk Split and Fenerbahce. Olympiakos too, which makes their new left back ineligible for the next round. That next round where they’ll play… Astra Giurgiu. The same buggers that knocked them out a year ago. The away leg is on the morning of August 19 (NZT) and the home leg a week later. Win this and they join Manchester United and Southampton in the group stages.

Oh mate, socks and crocs! What’s going on there, bro? Hey but at least he and Big Andy are chipping in around the new training ground. He should be too, it was an injury to Winston that led to Slaven Bilic moving the team to the Rush Green facilities early with the old place getting the blame for a string of muscle tweaks in the squad. The new place looks preeetty sexy. Check it out here.

Reid, based on what we’ve seen through last year and the pre-season, can expect to start the season as the first choice centre back. Angelo Ogbonna beside him, most likely. Team expectations are high but as far as Reidy goes, just staying fit for the full season should be enough because we know what he can do when he does. So do the Hammers fans, what with Winston a major part of the club’s marketing strategy this season. Dimitri Payet is #1, of course, but a 40 foot poster of an All White on the side of the Olympic Stadium is quite buzzy. Here he is at the official kit launch, where he got a nice big cheer from the irons:

Which probably has something to do with this:

This is kinda cool as well:

And since it’s way too easy to forget that footballers are people as well, with actual lives off the field beyond training and press conferences, shout out to Winston and wife Yana, coz the twins are looking healthy and well.

The worry for West Ham is that with all the optimism around them, they’ll be expected to improve on a season in which they finished ahead of Chelsea, Liverpool and Everton. They were a tough team to beat and also took Manchester United to an FA Cup quarter final replay but even with the new stadium packed to the brim each week (they’ll be lucky) and the brilliance of Dimi Payet, an improved standing will be tough. Where they could make bank, though, is in the Europa League. And for the second year in a row we’ve seen West Ham play it smart in the transfer window, utilising loans and free transfers while others are breaking out blank cheques. When they did go all in on an expensive one, it’s a proven player in England with connections already to their main playmaker – the two were on fire together in the 2014-15 season when Marseille finished fourth under Marcelo Bielsa.

This is a deeper squad than it was last year and one that shouldn’t be as reliant on Payet as it was before, note the targeting of new creative players. They’ll be tight in the midfield and strong at the back, it’s just a matter of avoiding the silly mistakes that cost them last term. Slaven Bilic has plenty to be upbeat about into his second season in England, he’s a rare kinda boss who can balance the conservative, defensive stuff without taking away from the genius of a guy like Payet. This is a team that can definitely challenge for another top eight finish and the knockouts in the Europa League… and there’s a kiwi right at the heart of it.

Up Next: Chelsea vs West Ham, Tuesday 16 August, 7am (NZT)