Feghouli, Nordtveit and Tore set for West Ham competitive debuts in Europa League clash

Ready for action: Feghouli impressed in West Ham's most recent friendly
Arfa Griffiths/West Ham United via Getty Images
James Benge27 July 2016

All three of West Ham’s major summer signings could feature in Thursday’s Europa League clash with NK Domzale, Slaven Bilic has confirmed.

Sofiane Feghouli, Havard Nordtveit (both of whom arrived on free transfers) and Gokhan Tore have all featured in pre-season and could make their competitive bows in Slovenia as West Ham begin their Europa League campaign in the third qualifying round.

Former Valencia winger Feghouli has been particularly impressive, finding the net in a 3-0 friendly win over German side Karlsruher on Saturday.

Both Feghouli and Nordtveit have enjoyed full pre-seasons since their arrival at the Olympic Stadium at the start of the month and Bilic expects them to start in what will be a strong side as the Hammers begin their European journey.

West Ham 2016/17 pre-season fixtures

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“They have made a really good impression and some of them will start, definitely,” Bilic said. “If you are talking about Feghouli, if you are talking about Nordtveit, they started when we started because they didn’t have international football this summer. They are really quality players and they are what we expected from them.

“Of course they are going to get better and better, but already it is obvious that they are going to improve our squad and make a huge impact on the quality of our game, as well as Tore, who came a little bit after.

“He is also ready and fit and, as I said, we didn’t buy just for the sake of buying and just to make our squad bigger. We wanted to buy quality players and I’m sure that we’ve got them.”

Last season saw West Ham begin their Europa League journey in the first qualifying round, meaning their campaign began on July 2. Bilic named weak sides in many of the fixtures and paid the price when his side were eliminated by Astra Giurgiu in the third round.

Bilic vowed not to take the same approach this time, with his side just four games away from the group stages of the tournament.

“It’s not that last year we didn’t want to qualify, we wanted to,” he said. “We didn’t want to compromise the Premier League and compromise the preparation that we were in.

“We started in a funny way, very early with one team still on holiday and the other team training in Ireland. We went to Andorra [for the first qualifying round] and the second group went to Ireland. This year the opportunity was there to start at the time we wanted to start anyway, with or without the qualification games.

“We’ve had one, and only one, group and we have been together for a year. They know what I am expecting from them, me and my staff know the squad much better and we really want to qualify.”

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