Gini Wijnaldum and Liverpool Expecting “Tough Game” from West Ham

Never mind the annoyingly unavoidable the FA Cup talk, it’s time to get back to what matters for this Liverpool side, with their first game of the season against West Ham—a rescheduled affair from December moved due to the Club World Cup—set for Wednesday.

With it, there’s a chance to keep their winning run in the Premier League going, something that appeared at risk against Wolves last Thursday. But with the Reds pulling through in the end, Gini Wijnaldum says that match will give them even more confidence.

“Because we did it so many times, we have confidence,” the Netherlands international noted. “Even if we concede a goal or during the game we don’t score a goal and we’re coming to the last minutes of the game, we still have the confidence we can score.”

For Wijnaldum and the rest of the team, that confidence that grows a little each time they manage to score a late goal or secure a narrow victory—and on Wednesday they have the chance to achieve the feat of having beaten every other team in the league this season.

It will be another footnote in what has so far been an outstanding season for the Reds, and admittedly a minor one, but it will be another mark, another notch, another success—and so another reason to believe. If, of course, they can secure the victory on Wednesday.

“What I can say from the previous seasons, it was not always easy there,” Wijnaldum added. “We had some good results there. Last season was not that good, we went ahead but drew there and we could have lost the game because they were good on that day.

“Normally every game in the Premier League is a difficult game but they are really tough when they play at home. When teams are fighting to get points to survive it’s always difficult to go there because you know they’re going to fight because they want to survive.

“But it also depends how we start the game and how we perform. Are we sharp? Are we concentrated? If we have all those kind of things it makes it easier, but it’s still going to be a tough game.”