The Hammers make two changes to the starting eleven since their last Premier League outing against Nottingham Forest, with Nuno finally opting for a top two.
The line-ups have been announced, and the Hammers have decided to go bold. The Brazilian signing Pablo makes his first Hammers start over Lucas Paqueta, who has been subjected to a move away from the Hammers, and isn’t involved in the matchday squad.
As well as Pablo, Wan-Bissaka gets the nod over Walker-Peters since returning from AFCON, who hopefully can help bolster the Hammers defence this afternoon. Additionally, he isn’t the only defensive aspect seeing as Nuno has decided to put Mavropanos into the starting squad, who did suffer a blow against QPR, but seemingly he is fit to play over Max Kilman, who has only managed a spot on the bench for the game.
More interestingly, Soungatou Magassa is out of the squad, whilst the reason is unknown at the minute, given Nuno’s liking towards the Frenchman, you’d suspect that an injury has perhaps occured sinceht QPR match, therefore a midfield of Fernandes and Soucek is set to lead the lines.
Certainly a good decision to start Soucek, he provides that aspect of knowledge in a gamer tonight that won’t be all about pace, more so the brains and control, which he does achieve very well if he has someone alongside him, such as Fernandes.
As stanadard and his sublime performance against QPR, Summerville starts against Spurs as well as Jarrod Bowen outwide, it’s the obvious choice as per but it seem’s that they’ll be playing in a 4-4-2 or a 4-2-4 on the attack so hopefully both the winger will be able to utilise the front two that we have, something of which Hammers fans haven’t seen in a long while, but something that could certainly be exciting, given that both Taty and Pablo have preferences to play in a front two.
Pablo will get his first Hammers start and hopefully is now fully fit after picking up a slight injury. It’ll certainly be exciting to see how he plays in his first full Premier League game, one to certainly remember given that it’s against Tottenham.
An interesting formation twist from Nuno, but one that was much needed given that what we were previously trying wasn’t working, so the best thing to do is change. It’s been a whole chunk of time since the Hammers have lined up this attacking, and it could have come right in the nick of time.