Ryan Fredericks would take huge satisfaction from helping West Ham United to a Premier League win at Arsenal on Saturday.
Born in Hammersmith, the right-back spent six seasons with the Gunners’ north London rivals Tottenham Hotspur as a youngster.
During his formative years with Spurs, Fredericks was loaned to Middlesbrough, for whom he featured in a 2-0 FA Cup fifth-round defeat at the Emirates Stadium in February 2015. Three-and-a-half years on, the 25-year-old is hoping to feature at the same venue again as the Hammers seek their first victory of the 2018/19 season.
“I am looking forward to the prospect of playing at the Emirates,” he confirmed. “Arsenal were a team I watched when I was younger with some of the players they had back in the day.
“Being a London boy, it’s a ground I always wanted to play at and I managed to do that in the FA Cup a few years ago, but to step out and win there would be a great feeling.”
To step out and win there would be a great feeling
Ryan Fredericks
While West Ham will be outsiders to take all three points at the Emirates – a ground they have won at just once in their last nine Premier League visits – Fredericks believes the Hammers can take advantage of any uncertainty in an Arsenal team also bedding in a new manager and new players and without a point from their opening two top-flight matches.
“It’s a massive game,” the No24 confirmed. “We’ve both not had the best of starts and lost our first two games, but I feel there was a lot of improvement from our first game to the second game.
“We’ll be confident going into the game. We know we’re doing the right things, but there are just one or two things that didn’t go right for us in the first couple of games and we conceded from them.
“We’ve been working hard in training this week to put those things right and we’ll definitely be going out there to do our best to get the three points.”