West Ham face Burnley in the opening weekend of the Championship on Sunday.

This summer has been a strange one for West Ham – the ownership drama, new investment talk, selling two of our best players for crazy money, struggling to get deals done etc.

But with the 26/27 Championship season looming things are starting to slowly fall into place. Joel Veltman and Manor Solomon have signed on the dotted line and more could be set to follow.

The Hammers have stepped up their pursuit of the likes of Arne Engels, Troy Parrott, and Reiss Nelson. The hope was to get at least one of those in for Burnley but that doesn’t look likely, so what will our starting eleven be at Turf Moor.

Expected starting XI: Hermansen: Walker-Peters, Mavropanos, Kilman, Scarles: Bowen, Kante, Alvarez, Solomon, Taty, Pablo.

I think Hermansen, KWP, Mavropanos, Kilman, Bowen, Alvarez, Taty, and Pablo are all certain to start.

I would personally go for Diouf at left-back because he offers so much more than Scarles going forward, and I feel like he and Solomon would work really down that side and could form a relationship like KWP and Bowen have on the right. However, with Diouf’s future up in the air amid an expected second bid from Brentford, I can see him starting on the bench in this one.

Lewis Orford partnered Edson Alvarez against Portsmouth and played well, he didn’t put a foot wrong. However, despite that also being against Championship opposition I’m not sure he’s quite ready to start yet. So, I think Nuno will move Kante back into central midfield for this one. This will allow Solomon to come straight in out on the left wing., he is fit and raring to go after a full pre-season at Spurs.

The front two of Taty and Pablo goes without saying, they are the only options. Let’s hope Pablo can prove us all wrong.