Newcastle United head to [London Stadium](https://www.claretandhugh.info/further-reinforcements-set-to-land-at-london-stadium/) this afternoon as overwhelming favourites, West Ham not having won at home since February. Sooner or later, every ‘trend’ gets cast aside and Hammers fans can only hope that today the form book goes out of the window: Predictions from all the usual pundits foretell of a Newcastle goal deluge.
Eddie Howe does have something of a tricky guessing game on his hands to work out the eleven he will be facing. Nuno Espirito Santo’s wacky and weird selections of late have had West Ham supporters scratching their heads: inverted full backs, a spare parts midfield and a set up without a striker at times has looked downright bizarre but it must leave opponents wondering just what they’ll be up against.
_Eventually, Nuno has to stumble upon the best starting XI – maybe today?_
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The West Ham coach must steer away from ‘_ludicrous starting XIs_‘ as Jacob Steinberg labelled it, and return to picking the best eleven available. Poor Ollie Scarles gets a reprieve from being a left back shoehorned into the right back position as he’s broken his collar bone. A nice conventional eleven will do today please, Nuno: Use Fernandes and Magassa instead of Irving and the increasingly one-paced Tomas Soucek . According to [footballfancast.com](https://www.footballfancast.com/not-just-paqueta-nuno-must-drop-west-ham-dud-tomas-soucek/)
_“The 30-year-old is declining in front of everyone’s eyes at the moment, with his lacklustre performances across October not too dissimilar to that of Irving’s no-shows”_
But with Nuno, who can tell what the team will look like. Five at the back? No striker? Guido Rodriguez again? The only comfort being if we can’t work out his strategy, then an opponent has no chance.