West Ham have, as expected, made quite a few changes to the team ahead of tonight’s match against Fulham.
Getting promoted out of the Championship is clearly the focus for West Ham and the manager Nuno Espírito Santo.
That is clear from the starting XI he has named. The Hammers have made six changes to the team that hammered Wrexham 6-0 on Friday night.
The Starting XI: Herrick; Walker-Peters, Mavropanos, Kilman, Morato; Orford, Engels, Kante; Mukasa, Pablo, Ajala.
The formation is unclear due to their being no out and out wingers named in the starting XI.
However, from the personnel I would expect a 4-2-3-1 formation from the Hammers tonight.
Expectedly, Herrick comes in for Hermansen with Areola still out with a reported dead leg.
The back four explains itself it is probably our strongest defence at the moment which sort of shows Nuno is keen to win this match.
I think it will be a midfield pivot of Engels and Orford which should help us keep the ball, with Kante in the more advanced midfield position, just off Pablo like we saw last Tuesday against Bolton.
Then Ajala on the left with Divine Mukasa switching to the right of midfield rather than in the centre where he has been playing alongside Engels.
This isn’t quite what the fans were expecting. I know I was expecting to see Adama Boiro, Edvin Austbo, and Airidas Golambeckis get some minutes also.
The bench is very strong with Piroe, Bowen, Taty, Solomon all named amongst the subs.
However, most interestingly Songoutou Magassa is back in the squad as our very own ExWHUEmployee called earlier today.
It’s a rotated attack, but the core of the team is the same. With the big guns on the bench there is no reason why we can’t get through tonight against what is also a rotated Fulham team.
COYI!
