West Ham United v Charlton | Nuno’s tactics, goals, scoreline predicted

Just the second game of the season and Nuno Espírito Santo finds himself under a certain amount of pressure as the highest paid manager in the Championship and surely the coach with the most expensive team ever assembled at his disposal for an assault on the second division title.

As such, having seen his credibility dented by being relegated last May, the Portuguese manager needs to hit the ground running at home to lay down a marker that ‘his’ style of play will see the Hammers in the mix for promotion at the end of May.

No time for parking the bus and surrendering more points as at Turf Moor last week.

The crowd and the board – whoever that turns out to be – will surely have expectations far higher than Nuno’s flawed dour defensive dramas.

So our expectation is that he’ll stick with a 4-4-2 formation, using new signing Joel Piroe immediately alongside – or slightly ahead – of Taty Castellanos, in the absence of Pablo through injury. Which could mean a less effective ‘press’ without Pablo: Last season Charlton were pacy, counter attacking specialists so it will be interesting (!) to see how the Hammers set up to combat this.

Hopefully not overcommitting with full backs too early in the game and getting caught out of position….

My ‘best guess’ starting eleven is as follows:

West Ham predicted XI

Hermansen | Walker Peters, Mavropanos, Kilman, Diouf | Engels, Kanté | Bowen, Castellanos, Piroe, Solomon

Score predictions:

Sean 1-0 West Ham

Matt 2-1 West Ham win

Gonzo 4-1 West Ham win

Martin 2-0 West Ham win

No pressure then, ‘full house’ Hammers victory predicted!!

Check back at 13.45 for Nuno’s ‘official’ starting line up as soon as it is published.