Nuno Espirito Santo has to change something in West Ham’s midfield.

If you play a 4-4-2 formation as one of the best teams in the league, you need to make sure both midfielders are good passers and are very comfortable on the ball.

New signing Arne Engels didn’t have a great game, but he fits that mould; he can keep the ball ticking along and get it to the more attacking and wider players quickly.

However, his partner on Saturday, Mohammadou Kante, was the complete opposite of that. He looked absolutely awful. He was the one in charge of dropping deep and taking the ball off of the defenders to start the attacks.

But he was absolutely hopeless at the role; his touch was off, he took way too long to release the ball, and when he finally released it, his passing was poor.

Kante played this role once in pre-season away at Stevenage, and he looked just as bad; we just got away with it against poorer opposition.

The Frenchman in that midfield position, alongside Nuno’s other crazy decision to play Piroe in the deeper position up front instead of Taty, were the main problems of why we didn’t function.

You might say, ‘Well, it worked last season with Soucek and Fernandes; Soucek isn’t great technically?’ Yes, Soucek isn’t great with the ball at his feet, but Kante on Saturday was nothing short of embarrassing. Also, in the Premier League, we didn’t have to dominate possession, so Soucek’s deficiencies were highlighted.

Mo Kante has a lot of good things to his game; he has a lot of potential, but his deficiencies are going to be exposed a lot of times this season. I’d be very happy with him playing in a midfield three, but in a two I just can’t see it working.

We saw how much we improved in the second half when Lewis Orford came on. Now Nuno has a big decision: does he want to trust Orford in this role, or will we dip into the market for a sitting midfielder with an excellent passing range?

With Ward-Prowse and Magassa in the squad that could also do this role a lot better than Kante, I think I’d trust Orford. But again this raises the question, why on earth did we sanction the sale of Freddie Potts with the squad in this state?