West Ham United face Fulham in the third round of the Carabao Cup on Tuesday.
The Hammers come up against their first Premier League side sinc ebeing relegated from the top tier last season after beating Portsmouth and Southampton in the previous rounds.
Having played a lot of matches in the last couple of weeks in the Championship, Nuno Espirito Santo is expected to name a heavily rotated side against former Hammer Álvaro Arbeloa’s side.
In goal, Finlay Herrick is likely to start with Alphonse Areola still out injured. I can see KWP coming in from the start after Veltman’s knock on Friday night with a central defensive pairing of Morato and Golambeckis, giving the duo of Mavropanos and Kilman a rest ahead of Millwall.
I would also expect new signing Adama Boiro to make his first start for the club on Tuesdat evening at left-back. This means no place in the starting XI for Ezra Mayers who really should’ve been loaned out this term, but he definetly should get a spot on the bench.
I can see a couple of changes occuring in the midfield two, both Mukasa and Engels are likely to drop out of the XI after playing a lot of minutes recently. Lewis Orford has to starty this one and I think he will, he played a starring role in the 4-1 win over Southampton in the next round.
Alongside Orford, I would love to see one of Alvarez and Magassa integrated into the team. However, it seems like both players have been training alone, so I can’t see it. So, I would guess Mo Kante will play alongside the former Stevenage loanee.
Jarrod Bowen can’t start this game after playing pretty much every minute so far this campaign. Solomon did have a rest vs Bolton, so I would expect him to start on the left with Edvin Austbo on the right.
In that position, just behind the striker I can see Nuno opting for Keiber Lamadrid. Well, having both the Venezuelan and Kante in the team would allow the Portuguese manager to play one in midfield and the other as almost part of the front two. That would most likely be Kanté.
I don’t think Nuno will want to play Taty or Piroe from the start looking ahead to Millwall, so Pablo Felipe is almost guaranteed to play from the start on Tuesday.
We saw Kanté and Pablo play up front together at the Toughsheet Community Stadium last Tuesday; it didn’t really work, however, we might get that again this week.
It didn’t work, neither player had particularly good games, but we won three nil. It allowed the other players to shine, so it could be a big opportunity for Austbo and Solomon to step up and show what they can do.
Predicted team: Herrick: Walker-Peters, Golambeckis, Morato, Adama; Austbo, Orford, Lamadrid, Solomon; Kante, Pablo.
This would be nine changes from the Hammers team that beat Wrexham 6-0 on Friday evening. So, lots of changes are expected for Nuno Espírito Santo.
I don’t think I’d be confident of getting a result on paper with this team in a Championship game, let alone against a Premier League side. However, this is a confident Championship squad against an out-of-form PL one, so we definitely would still be in with a fighting chance.
Despite this, I don’t think this is a match anyone is particularly worried about. Obviously, we’d love to win to keep the run going. However, the focus for this season is on being promoted, not going far in the Carabao Cup.
