Goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski feels West Ham have the strength in depth needed to test Everton in their Carabao Cup tie – whatever the team is at Goodison Park.
The Hammers are eager to remain fighting on two fronts at this early stage of the season despite a tough trip to Goodison Park.
After comprehensive victories over Charlton and Hull in the competition this term, West Ham got off the mark in the Premier League on Sunday with a 4-0 thrashing of Wolves at the London Stadium.
Manager David Moyes, who is self-isolating after testing positive for coronavirus last week, is set to make more changes for the fourth-round tie and his first-choice goalkeeper could be on the bench.
But Fabianski told the official club website: “When you look at the squad we have, there is a lot of quality.
“Even when you see the games in the Carabao Cup, there is a completely different line-up and they are still performing.
“We were not happy with the game against Newcastle, which was bad from our point of view but, on the other hand, the other performances have been really good.
“All the players have been used and all the players have performed at a really good level and that’s something we can build on again.
“There is strong competition in the squad and hopefully we will push each other to get better.”
Darren Randolph is expected to deputise for Fabianski again in the cup tie on Wednesday.
The Irons will definitely be without defender Ryan Fredericks after he suffered a hamstring injury during the win over Wolves.
Captain Mark Noble could start after he made a cameo at the weekend following a spell on the sidelines with a toe problem.
The game with Everton is another chance for frontman Sebastien Haller to impress as the Frenchman looks to add to his five goals in all competitions.
With West Ham in the middle of a tricky run of matches, Fabianski says it is important they keep building moment with a trip to Leicester up next in the league on Saturday.
“The start of the season has been very intense because we’re playing every three days, but we’re on a good run in the cup and we would like that to continue,” the Poland goalkeeper added.
“There is another difficult game against Everton on Wednesday and a game against Leicester, who have started the season really strong, a few days later.
“But I think you can see with our team that we’ve pushed on from the first game and developed in a short space of time.
“Hopefully the performances we’ve shown in recent games will give us a good boost and we can push on in the upcoming games.”
Moyes enjoyed a successful spell in charge of Everton from 2002 until 2013, when he left to take over at Manchester United.
Assistant manager Alan Irvine will also put past allegiance to one side, the former winger having served Everton as a player, coach and also Academy director.
The Scot feels if West Ham can tighten up at the back, then there is no reason why they cannot push forwards over the campaign.
“We obviously had a good goalscoring record last season as well and I think our ‘goals for’ column was something like seventh or eighth-best in the league, but it was our ‘goals against’ that were the problem,” Irvine said.
“It was great for us to get the four goals (against Wolves) on Sunday and put that on the back of other good goalscoring performances, but it was also fantastic to get a clean sheet.
“That was really important, because if we can improve that and keep scoring the goals we scored last season, we will be in a fantastic position.”
