With the new signings West Ham have made in midfield and hopefully the return of Ravel Morrison fans are now left wondering who will be starting in midfield and how that will affect the formation we will play. Our main options are of course Mark Noble, Cheikhou Kouyaté, Alex Song, then in front of them, Ravel Morrison, Kevin Nolan and Mauro Zárate.
Kouyate has been the stand out performer so far this season so he is highly unlikely to be dropped, Mark Noble is captain at the moment while Nolan is still out and is usually Mr consistent but hasn’t been quite at that level so far this season and Alex Song who has not yet played a premier league for us but as I’m sure most fans have seen he performed very well in our friendly during the international break. So, do we play three in the middle? Push one of them forward? Use one of them in central defence? Fans would love to see a midfield three of Song, Noble and Kouyate, it’s very strong, reliable and as good going forward as it would be in defending. I think for the Hull game we’ve either got to go with all three of them in midfield.
Some fans may not agree but what I would say after the embarrassing defeat against Southampton is we missed Kevin Nolan a lot! Maybe not in terms of pure skill but we needed a leader and someone who’s not afraid to shout at the others and tell them what they need to be doing. So when Nolan comes back from injury which could still be a while I expected he will come straight back into the team and take his place behind the striker which will probably be Sakho. However for the next few weeks Zarate and Morrison will be fighting for the place. Morrison who again put in a great performance in a game during the international break and Zarate who scored a beautiful goal against Palace. I’d be tempted to go with Morrison, he has a lot to prove but we know his talent and skill is there, therefore I think he could work really well with Sakho on Monday night, where hopefully we pick up another 3 points on the road.