Wednesday 3 August 2016

SuperSlav's Options for Starting XI for Europa League Clash

Slaven Bilic made his intentions clear today that West Ham would wholeheartedly compete for a place in the next round of the Europa League. As such NK Domzale can expect an offensive Hammers starting XI with Bilic taking full advantage of his returning Euro 2016 heroes to bolster the side.

We predict that he will finally abandon the nonsense of playing Michail Antonio out of position at right back and instead use his talents on the right wing, with Sofiane Feghouli switching flanks and Enner Valencia moving to the bench.


This will be enabled by bringing both James Collins (CB) and Angelo Ogbonna (Left back) into the side, with Sam Byram moving to his preferred (right) flank. Havard Nordtveit can thus move in front of the back four as the defensive midfielder in a Christmas tree formation (4-3-2-1).

If Collins is not well enough recovered he may go for one of the Reece's alongside Reid. Having let James Tomkins leave the squad we must assume that SuperSlav has huge faith in these two developing talents.

Expect this to become a 4-2-2-2 if things don't go well with Valencia replacing Nordtveit but moving to the left wing to allow Feghouli to go to the right side and Antonio to provide a second striker.

One other option would be to play Ashley Fletcher up front with Andy Carroll from the start but given the Slovenians pace on the counter Bilic will be fearful of conceding away goals, and will likely play it conservatively to see how things go for the first 45 mins.

Either way, it'll be an exciting evening. Let's hope the extra week of preparation will stand to our lads.







 

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