How does Mateus Fernandes stack up against Cole Palmer? Can Konstantinos Mavropanos outshine Trevoh Chalobah? Will Taty Castellanos get the better of Liam Delap? West Ham United’s trip to Chelsea certainly throws up a few intriguing head-to-heads.
Earlier this week, we at Hammers News asked our readers to vote for your West Ham United and Chelsea combined XI ahead of Saturday’s London derby at Stamford Bridge.
Of course, biases were always going to be at play. Taty Castellanos has only made three goalless appearances in the Premier League and he still earned 69 per cent of the vote compared to the aforementioned Delap.
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But it maybe reflects positively on the current form of a team chasing four successive wins that Marc Cucurella, Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo are the only three Chelsea players you picked to make up this very hypothetical XI.
Mateus Fernandes is outperforming Cole Palmer in a number of different departments right now. Crysencio Summerville can join Jarrod Bowen, Jesse Lingard and Diafra Sakho as the only Hammer to score in four successive games in the Premier League era if he finds the net in West London.
A few months ago, the prospect of travelling to Chelsea with Konstantinos Mavropanos and Jean-Clair Todibo at the back would have had even the most optimistic supporters sweating at the brow. Touch wood; there has been a genuine sense of security at the heart of the West Ham backline recently – aided, of course, by the appointment of Paco Jemez.
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No Cole Palmer in your West Ham and Chelsea combined XI
With 70 per cent of the vote, Alphonse Areola saw off Chelsea counterpart Robert Sanchez in a landslide. The biggest differential, however, was in the Jarrod Bowen and Summerville versus Estevao and Alejandro Garnacho category.
With one each against Tottenham and Sunderland, Summerville has scored more goals in the last two games than Garnacho has in 14 top-flight matches for his new employers.
Liam Delap was linked with West Ham himself after netting 14 times for a relegated Ipswich Town outfit last term. He too has only scored once in the Premier League as a Chelsea player though. As such, Castellanos can equal Delap’s tally in double-quick time should he follow up that QPR winner against another West London-based outfit.
Ollie Scarles’ fine form during El Hadji Malick Diouf’s AFCON-enforced absence was not enough to see him win out against the all-action but thoroughly-unlikeable Cucurella, however.
The midfield pairing of Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo picked up the greatest number of votes from a Chelsea perspective. Less than 20 per cent of you selected Freddie Potts and Tomas Soucek at the time of writing.
Fernandes over Palmer? Taty over Delap? Some big calls from our readers!
Have your choices been justified?
Konstantinos Mavropanos hails Paco Jemez as Nuno faces selection dilemma
Whether Nuno selects Freddie Potts, meanwhile, only time will tell.
The 22-year-old has not started a league match since he was hauled off at half-time during the 3-0 mauling at Wolves. Up against the artistry of Enzo and the V8 engine of Caicedo, Nuno may be tempted to bring Potts back in.
Tomas Soucek has excelled in Potts’ recent absence, though. His aerial presence makes him a massive help in both boxes. Chelsea took full advantage of West Ham’s set-piece deficiencies during August’s 5-1 obliteration.
With Soucek, Mavropanos and Areola now starting regularly, not to mention the spring-heeled Pablo Felipe, the Hammers side which travels to Stamford Bridge feels like a different beast to the wounded wildebeest of mid-August.
Both Ollie Scarles and Mavropanos have credited Paco Jemez with strengthening a defence which shipped goals at an alarming rate until relatively recently.
“He tries to help a lot, especially the backline,” Mavropanos tells the club’s official website.
“There were things, obviously, that were missing in our games. Sometimes, the basics. I think in the first half of the season, some basic stuff of defending in general was missing and he’s just trying to improve that individually and collectively, how we should work as a team.
“We’d got into bad habits, so we’re working on it daily in training which helps us a lot to improve and be more focused and more ready for the games.”
Nuno talks up the quality of Liam Rosenior’s ‘fantastic’ Chelsea squad
Nuno was ‘very impressed’ by what he saw from tomorrow’s opponents when they defeated Napoli away from home in the Champions League in midweek, meanwhile.
“Chelsea has a fantastic squad and Liam [Rosenior] has many, many options. They are playing good,” Nuno said.
“We cannot predict the XI because there are so many options and so many things that Liam can take advantage of. Knowing it’s a very, very good team, we have to be really spot on to play.
“We have to focus on ourselves. Ignore what our opponents [in the relegation battle] do,” the manager adds, four points from six for Nottingham Forest dampening West Ham’s spirits. “Just try and compete well, play good, achieve results and keep going.
“We cannot focus on what the other teams are doing. We cannot control it.
“[It is about] us. How can we do, how can we become better, more accurate? It’s day by day. We know [the fans] are going to be there. Together, we will try and make something happen.”
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