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Midfielder Songoutou Magassa is far from a favourite of West Ham fans at the moment.

When West Ham signed Magassa for a fee of around £17m from Monaco, it felt like a bit of a coup.

He had a couple of good matches; the stand out when he scored in the 1-1 draw with Manchester United at Old Trafford; he was immense that night.

However, his season didn’t go as planned for him personally or as a team; obviously we got relegated.

So, he didn’t quite prove he was good enough for the PL consistently, so maybe the Championship would be a good opportunity for him to acclimatise to English football, with more chances of playing almost every game.

However, the Frenchman had other ideas. Despite being happy to stay originally, towards the end of the window he started looking for a move away.

He obviously didn’t get his wish, and he’s still at the club, but he’s still yet to make an appearance in claret and blue this season.

This International break could be an opportunity for Magassa to prove himself to Nuno, because there could be a spot for him in the starting XI if the manager makes a switch.

A lot of fans have been calling for Nuno to move to the 3-4-3 formation that we switched to in the second half vs Millwall.

Every time we’ve switched to that late on, we’ve improved, so these three weeks off could be a great chance for us to work on it and to play that way from the start, potentially?

Magassa is unlikely to get into the team as a central midfielder much with Mukasa, Engels, Orford, Kante, and now the returning Soucek all ahead of him in the pecking order.

If we play a back three, could that be the perfect chance for Magassa to break into the starting XI?

The back three in the second half vs Millwall was Mavropanos, Kilman and Morato. This makes sense as it’s our only three senior central defenders.

However, if Nuno wants to make that back three more fluent, maybe Magassa coming in for one of Kilman or Morato, moving Dinos to the middle and having Magassa to the right side could really benefit us.

To be honest, I can’t see Nuno moving from the 4-4-2 anytime soon, especially in favour of a 3-4-3 from the start. However, I wouldn’t be against it in certain types of matches.

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