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Much has been said of Slaven Bilic’s decision to omit several of the club’s first team players for tonight’s visit to Romania.

Some argue that we should be focusing on the Premier League this season and the Europa League is an unwanted distraction, others insist we should be taking it seriously because it’s a competition we’ve entered – if you’re not going to take it seriously, why bothered agreeing to take part? Because you can decline to play in a competition if you don’t want to be involved.

Anyway, we are involved and so far we’ve made hard work of it. Throwing away a two goal lead at home to a side like Astra is so typically West Ham, but now we’re in a position where our kids and a small handful of fringe players in the first team have to get a result.

There’ll be positives to take away from tonight regardless of the result. Go through and it’s just a step closer to reaching the group stages, go out and we won’t have to worry about the harsh schedule that comes with being in the group stages. Literally in limbo, aren’t we.

Anyway, here are tonight’s confirmed starting line-ups…

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