New West Ham signing Soungoutou Magassa had a decent first start for West Ham vs Everton, but there is a lot more to come from the France U21 International.

Soungoutou made his first start for the Hammers on Monday night after signing for £17m from Monaco just over a month ago, the Frenchman being a Potter signing, but not making his full debut despite being a Potter signing says everything about his time at the club really.

However, like every other player at the club, maybe apart from James Ward-Prowse, who was left out of the matchday squad on Monday, Magassa has a clean slate under Nuno Espirito Santo. The Portuguese manager starting Magassa in his first match suggests that he will be part of his plans going forward.

A lot of the fanbase were buzzing with the young midfielder, with some saying he should have won the player of the match award at the Hill Dickinson Stadium. The 21-year-old excelled with his defensive duties in the middle of the park and offered a much needed physicality up against a midfield of Idrissa Gueye and James Garner.

Ahead of the match in Liverpool, Nuno was asked why Magassa got the nod to start, he replied: “Physicality. He can bring physicality in the middle of the park. He can help with the build up, we want to know the players out there.” He offered exactly that in the base of midfield, both defensively and offensively. The midfielder is known for his defensive qualities and his ability to also play in central defence, but on Monday night, he was also progressing the ball pretty well at times with his power and ability on the ball.

The 6’2 Frenchman offers something different to what we’ve had in midfield for quite a long time. He lacks a bit of pace, but he has pretty much everything else you want in a defensive midfielder and is also not anywhere near as slow as Ward-Prowse. He’s tall. excellent in the tackle and is pretty good with his feet for a big man, he is able to get him out of some sticky situations and we saw that on Monday.

However, it wasn’t all positives for the former Monaco man, just before the hour mark you could see he was beginning to tire, this is probably down to his lack of minutes recently, but Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall started to get the better of him slightly. The decision to take him off for Freddie Potts was an excellent one, as the 22-year-old came on and played very well.

Obviously it’s early days in Nuno’s reign and it’s only one match, but its good to see we may have two young and competent defensive midfielders in our squad, and we now have a manager that actually wants to use them, unlike Graham Potter.  As good as Magassa was on Monday, I would worry about starting him in midfield with Fernandes and Paqueta ahead of him against Arsenal. A midfield three of Magassa – Potts – Paqueta could be the way to go on Saturday.