West Ham v Chelsea – Claret and Hugh’s team predictions

West Ham’s home season opener against Chelsea assumes massive proportions after the Stadium of Light capitulation against Sunderland. Graham Potter needs to coax his team to show fighting spirit and backbone in front of 60,000-plus nervous home fans. And a world wide TV audience on Sky tv.

Trying to do other than predict a `Chelsea win is hard – the newly crowned club World Cup champions have a good recent record agains both Potter and Lopetegui’s Hammers sides. we are watching for Potter returning to the youthful element who performed so well in pre-season: Freddie Potts must surely be in with a shout of a start tonight after the midfield travails past week.

In addition Callum Marshall, West Ham’s young striker, should at least get onto the bench and into Potter’s reckoning after missing last week through a 2024-5 one-game suspension hanging over from last May.

Here is our own expectation of which eleven Potter will send out – rather than our own hopes!

Hermansen |Wan Bissaka, Todibo, Kilman, Aguerd, Diouf | Soucek, Ward Prowse, Paquetá | Fullkrug, Bowen

Which means Rodriguez benched in favour of Soucek. Apart from that – same as last week. We’d rather see (for all his flaws) Mavropanos than Kilman who was dreadful last week – but this is Potter’s likely XI, not our hoped-for set up..

Score predicitoons

Gonzo 2-0 Chelsea win

Martin 1-0 flukey West Ham win (Soucek header)

Matt 3-0 Chelsea win

Sean 0 – 0 draw – respect that point!

We’ll have the full line up for you at 18.45 so check back for Potter’s published selection.