Leeds vs West Ham | PL | 24.10.25 | Predictions and Match Thread

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 Odds: 
WHU: 7/2
Draw: 13/5
Arsenal: 5/6

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Well after the disaster of Monday at Brentford, the thought of more West Ham in the same week is enough to put anyone in a bad mood.  The 'pros' always talk about wanting to get bad games out of their system quickly, and this gives them that opportunity, but also sets up a horrible start to the weekend for the rest of us!

Teamwise, Mavro is out with what looked a nasty hamstring injury.  Fullkrug is still broken, and Earthy remains unfit.  Otherwise the rest of the squad are fit from a health perspective....maybe less so from a 'wear the shirt' angle.

Nuno's logic for his inverted fullbacks it's been revealed was to try and counter Brentford's inverted wing thread, by showing them onto the defender's strong foot...the less said about the success of that the better.  And it struggles to explain Irving and Soucek in the pivot, beyond maybe 'they're both tall'.

Anyway, hopefully that's the last of the experimentation and we can revert to what at least appears a bit less shit.  Wouldn't surprise me to see him go with a back 5 in this game though (and what I'll assume for my predicted XI).

Predicted lineup:

Areola

Wan Bissaka    Kilman     Igor   
Summerville                                            Diouf
Magassa Fernandes Paqueta

Soucek

Bowen

Subs: Hermansen, KWP, Todibo, Scarles, Potts, Irving, Guilherme, Wilson, Marshall

The squad is now a real quandary.  We don't have a good CB pairing...Todibo looks hopeless, Kilman and Igor both left footed, with one an unknown and the other weak as the senior CB.  Mavro was signed to be 3rd choice, but he's suddenly the most important man in the back line...a problem in itself.

Summerville is a must have...the only true pace in the side so leaving him out can't be compromised.  If 3 at the back and 3-4-3 was viable, not a problem....but once again we don't have a midfield with a logical two-man pairing.  Add in that Bwoen and Soucek are the only goals, and Paqueta is the only real 'vision' and we are in a bad place with a squad that don't work in combination.

So will he gamble on a bad back two, an untried midfield pair, or leave out one of the 'key' players in Soucek, Bowen, Paqueta, and Summerville.

And as for playing a real striker....

Predicted Score: Leeds 2 : 0 West Ham.

Hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.

COYI!

[Massive Attack]

                                                                      Areola
             KWP                        AWB                Kilman          igor          Diouf
                                                         Potts           Fernandez
                          Bowen                             Marshall                    Jimmy

Definitely a Nunothing formation.

Don't claim to know anything......just an opinion on a disdussion board!

It was how it was laid out on the screen, nothing more than that. More a dig at Nuno, not you.

[Lato]

                                                                      Areola
             KWP                        AWB                Kilman          igor          Diouf
                                                         Potts           Fernandez
                          Bowen                             Marshall                    Jimmy

Definitely a Nunothing formation.

Don't claim to know anything......just an opinion on a disdussion board!

[Massive Attack]

                                                                      Areola
             KWP                        AWB                Kilman          igor          Diouf
                                                         Potts           Fernandez
                          Bowen                             Marshall                    Jimmy

Definitely a Nunothing formation.

[Lato]

                                                                      Areola
             KWP                        AWB                Kilman          igor          Diouf
                                                         Potts           Fernandez
                          Bowen                             Marshall                    Jimmy

[Sir Alf]

Nuno’s pre match presser wasnt encouraging. He didnt admit the changes, players in certain positions didnt work ( eg inverted backs, Paqueta false 9 etc) . He seemed to put it all down to individuals not wimning their duels.  You aint making Soucek, Irvine run faster and be aggressive, you aint gonna play an academy kid on he wrong side and having to keep cutting inside or a CB who’s stats in the air are in the bottom 30% and expect him to dominate a side like Brentford with lumps and lots of set piece strengths. There are other examples of “square pegs in round holes” so Im not sure he sees the need for legs, players playing to their strengths and believes its all about systems and formations? Either that or its a bit of kidology and he’ll change everything pike Magassa and Potts as the CDM pivot, Paqueta deeper, Fernandes more of the no 10, AWB, Diouf or KWP in their proper positions and Wilson startimg as the central striker.   We shall soon see if his ego is a problem

[El Scorchio]

Apparently Nuno is thinking of this line-up for tonight's relegation 6 pointer

                                                       Herman-sen
Walker-Peters       Wan-Bissaka   Crap-Kilman   Jean-Clair Todibo   Malik-Diouf   

                Ward-Prowse    Old-Soucek   Rodri-Guez     Paquet-a      Summer-Ville

Which makes about as much sense as Monday night's line up, although I may have got the positions wrong as why on earth would you play a right back at err right back. 

Another depressing night ahead I fear, I have a feeling None-o may try and scrape a point whatever weird line-up he chooses

Clearly he's not.

[ragingbull]

We could win this,also get tanked toughie to predict.
 

[boleyn8420]

Apparently Nuno is thinking of this line-up for tonight's relegation 6 pointer

                                                       Herman-sen
Walker-Peters       Wan-Bissaka   Crap-Kilman   Jean-Clair Todibo   Malik-Diouf   

                Ward-Prowse    Old-Soucek   Rodri-Guez     Paquet-a      Summer-Ville

Which makes about as much sense as Monday night's line up, although I may have got the positions wrong as why on earth would you play a right back at err right back. 

Another depressing night ahead I fear, I have a feeling None-o may try and scrape a point whatever weird line-up he chooses

[simons]

Ha, I’m really not sure what to expect after Monday.

A rocket up all their arses hopefully!

[Massive Attack]

On the train. Anybody with a spare, give me a message

Hopefully they turn up for you like you have for them tonight. Fucking do it for poor old Simon, you lazy cunts!

[simons]

On the train. Anybody with a spare, give me a message

[Massive Attack]

Let’s also look at the comparisons between selling Rio and selling Rice. Both times the money completely wasted. None of Rice’s replacements are even reallly at the club now. Kudus gone on the cheap (well with a profit but less than we should have got) Alvarez mediocre performances and poor wantaway attitude, JWP outcast for being too shit. All of it basically wasted. Just like with the Rio money.

We had no system, no succession planning, no strategy or vision then or now. As a result both times the money effectively wasted. All we got was 20 mill from Kidus but that’s been wiped out and more by the huge losses we will take on JWP and Alvarez. 

compare us to Brighton Brentford or Bournemouth. When they sold big, they had the replacements bought cheap already at the club and stepped up seamlessly to leave virtually no holes in the team or drop in performance, while they pocketed huge profits to reinvest in the next lot of young talent. Two of them didn’t even drop a beat when they lost highly regarded managers and replaced them with nobodies. 

We are light years behind in every respect thanks to two people woefully out of their depth running this place like a car boot sale on the playing side. I am sure they are making out pretty well on the business side though. And that’s the point. Until now it’s ticked over, we’ve trod water and they’ve gambled and benefitted from it. Luck has run out. We’re drowning. The only consolation is they are coming down with us financially. 

I brought it up after we sold Rice for that very reason that I feared history could well repeat itself and should be avoided at all costs and it sadly has gone that way in soul destroying predictability. We never, ever fucking learn...

[zico]

Agreed. The biggest failing I see is we always replace a player with one that is absolutely nothing like the player they are replacing. Antonio the perfect example. Bumbling powerhouse who could run (at the time) but tried to replace him with tall players who couldn't run or in the case of Danny Ings, just couldn't run. Same when Moyes ridiculous pursuit of Lingard came to nothing. Why not then target a similar type of player? No that's too easy. Rice was never going to be easy to replace but at least look for a player with similar attributes. Ill be interested to see how long the likes of Brighton and Bournemouth can keep doing what they do though. Both Southampton and Wolves were good at it for a few years until they got rid of too many of their top players and look where they are now. It's not a sustainable strategy I don't think, certainly not long term. Having said that we haven't really got any more top players to sell!

[Sir Alf]

Lads best to accept relegation is happening and preoare yourself mentally. Then anything else is a bonus.

wyy? Losing Mavropanos now before the Jan window was another “nail in the coffin” for us. Our only physically tough defender good in the air. Todibo was never that type of player ( always part of a 3 and tasked with bringing it out of defence, connecting to forwards at previous clubs) and Igor, while a tough tackler, is in the bottom 1% in Europe for aerial duels.  Kilman also exposed without a leader / talker like Conor Cosdy alongside shouting at him what to do as he had at. Wolves

Another big issue of course is we have no target man who can hold it up which is critical to Nuno’s system and gives an outball etc.

Nuno’s low possession tactic takes us back to Moyesball but we recruited in the last 2 windows for Loppy, Potter and a few Sully specials for 2 managers who want high possession and control. The exact opposite. A Frankenstein like squad ( makes Igor playomg s possibility ) where the parts dont fit together but also missing key pieces. 

Nuno? Was he actually reliant on his 3 cosches thst were with him everywhere?  A bit like Moyes falling apart when Alan Irvine was not with him?

The only thing Nuno shpuld IMO do is play the most athletic, physical players with the best engines in their correct positions but even then Im now thinking it ls simply not gonna be strong enough. 

Best I can come up with is:

———- Areola
KWP ——- ??  —— Kilman ( sigh ) — AWB
 —— Potts. ——Magassa
—— Fernandes —— Paqueta —— Summerville
———- Bowen

Gawd knows who takes the other CB spot?  Todibo, Igor, Soucek?

We’re fvcked with this squad nd wont get enough points by Jan to survive is my thinking.

[,]

Choosing a starting eleven is much less difficult than choosing the eleven that Nuno will start with as evidenced by the Brentford game. Even if anyone manages to predict Nuno’s choices the probability is that the positions they are selected to play in will be different.

[El Scorchio]

Let’s also look at the comparisons between selling Rio and selling Rice. Both times the money completely wasted. None of Rice’s replacements are even reallly at the club now. Kudus gone on the cheap (well with a profit but less than we should have got) Alvarez mediocre performances and poor wantaway attitude, JWP outcast for being too shit. All of it basically wasted. Just like with the Rio money.

We had no system, no succession planning, no strategy or vision then or now. As a result both times the money effectively wasted. All we got was 20 mill from Kidus but that’s been wiped out and more by the huge losses we will take on JWP and Alvarez. 

compare us to Brighton Brentford or Bournemouth. When they sold big, they had the replacements bought cheap already at the club and stepped up seamlessly to leave virtually no holes in the team or drop in performance, while they pocketed huge profits to reinvest in the next lot of young talent. Two of them didn’t even drop a beat when they lost highly regarded managers and replaced them with nobodies. 

We are light years behind in every respect thanks to two people woefully out of their depth running this place like a car boot sale on the playing side. I am sure they are making out pretty well on the business side though. And that’s the point. Until now it’s ticked over, we’ve trod water and they’ve gambled and benefitted from it. Luck has run out. We’re drowning. The only consolation is they are coming down with us financially. 

[Shropshire_Iron]

I'll be watching in Lanzarote these useless cunts better not ruin my Friday night

[Massive Attack]

Early morning game for me, but doubt i will watch, will check the score but win, lose or draw, not sure i will be too bothered or be getting excited, pissed off or frustrated such is the state of the club right now.



FWIW, The demise of West Ham, goes back a good few years, even before these owners, maybe the turning point was selling Rio to Leeds against everyone's will, including the player, Harry then went and we have been on decline ever since especially since the stadium move, that cup win was nice but let's be honest, its second rate comp that ANY PL team should be walking, as Chelsea showed last season with there reserves doing most of the work!.

Agree entirely. Selling Rio was definitely the start of it all going wrong under Brown. Him and Sullivan are 2 shitpeas from the same pod.

From controversial wideboy deals done from the Tevez/Mascherano fiasco to the worst Stadium move in history by trying to cut corners and do thing's on the cheap but always end up being total disasters. Decisions that have only dragged our Club down, rather than elevated it up to where it should belong.

[Massive Attack]

what evidence have you got that Sullivan's trying to avoid the drop? 

He's done it for years with his ultimate goal of avoiding the drop by just doing enough. In his eyes hiring coaches that have a good record of keeping Teams in the Prem from Allardyce, Moyes twice, Lopetegui keeping Wolves up, Potter not getting Brighton relegated, Nuno keeping both Wolves and Forest up. It's his Modus Operandi to get managers in who usually keep Teams in the Prem. And it's worked so far for him. 

[THUNDERCLINT]

Cunting Fuckface not being picked is 100 % Sullivan which is fucking hilarious as it was Sullivan alone who signed him and guaranteed him he'd get his appearance money every week.

It's why Cunting Fuckface was so confident about his wage packet when he signed.

Likely he's out in January. The podcasts will then get interesting I  imagine. 

 

[frank marker]

Perhaps Nuno ought to pin a copy of these comments up in the dressing room before the game. If I was a player they would make me feel like kicking the shit out of anyone in front of me.

[Mad Ferret]

                       Areola 
             AWB TOdibo Igor 
KWP  Potts  Fernandes   Diouf  
         Marshall    Summerville 
                     Bowen 

Laughable 

[Come On You Irons]

People selecting teams without the overrated showboating Brazilian are deluded given No hope Nuno the Numpty said in his press conference we basically need to build the team about his fellow Portuguese speaker.

[Rossal]

                       Areola 
             AWB TOdibo Igor 
KWP  Potts  Fernandes   Diouf  
         Marshall    Summerville 
                     Bowen 

[Keep dreaming]

Considering how fucking shit we have been lately, here is my line up for tonight (4231)

...............Areola 
Bissaka Todibo Ezra Diouf 
........Magassa Potts
Bowen Fernandes Summerville 
.............. Wilson