Nuno Espirito Santo spot on with Taty Castellanos example as West Ham XI named vs Lincoln
Nuno Espirito Santo has named his West Ham United starting lineup for the trip to Lincoln City.
Wednesday night sees West Ham looking to break two-game winless run in the Championship.
Lincoln won't make it easy for the Irons either, with the newly-promoted side winning two and losing two from their last four league outings.
One player who was expected to light up the second tier this season for West Ham was Taty Castellanos.
However, with just the one goal from his first eight league games of the campaign, the Argentine international isn't living up to the hype.
What West Ham team has Nuno picked vs Lincoln?
There's no excuses for West Ham in Lincolnshire tonight, as anything less than three points will be seen as another huge missed opportunity.
With the likes of Middlesbrough and Swansea City not slowing down at the top, the Hammers can't afford to lose too much early ground.
Mads Hermansen starts in goal at the ProAmpac Stadium, with Joel Veltman and Morato as the two full-backs.
Konstantinos Mavropanos and Max Kilman once again form their excellent centre-back partnership.
In midfield, Mohamadou Kante comes in to replace Tomas Soucek, and is partnered in the middle by Arne Engels and Divine Mukasa.
On the right is the skipper Jarrod Bowen, whilst Manor Solomon is deployed down the left.
Up top, Nuno has reverted to a front two of Pablo and Joel Piroe, with Castellanos dropping to the bench.
Benching Castellanos is a big and bold call by Nuno, but doing so was absolutely a necessary decision.
Pablo deserved to earn starting chance over Castellanos
It's not so much that Castellanos has been playing particularly poorly this season, as that's not the case.
His general centre-forward play has been solid, but ultimately he's there to score goals, and a player of his pedigree should be doing that at Championship level.
Castellanos isn't, however, and Lincoln marked a natural point for Nuno to make a fair example of the Argentine's form.
It says to players like Pablo, who has been putting in some very encouraging performances of late, that the starting striker job in this side isn't set in stone.
Pablo has two goal involvements from his last three games, whereas Castellanos is now three games without a single one.
If Castellanos had started and drawn another blank against Lincoln tonight, then big questions would've been asked over Nuno's reluctance to drop him.