WHZ View: Lanzini to start over Noble – West Ham predicted XI v Saints
West Ham travel to St Mary’s on Tuesday night looking to get their Premier League form back on track against Southampton.
The Hammers are without a win in their last three as injuries and tactical mistakes start to take their toll on David Moyes’ side.
West Ham looked like they were managing just fine without Arthur Masuaku, but Moyes has since started tinkering with his formations.
The Scot once again has some decisions to make ahead of the game against Southampton and this is the starting XI that we think he might deploy on Tuesday night.
In goal, Lukasz Fabianski remains the club’s no.1 and there are no question marks about his place in the team.
The Hammers have played some of their better football when lining up in a back five this season, so we think Moyes may stick with it after reverting to the system against Brighton.
Aaron Cresswell, Angelo Ogbonna and Fabian Balbuena make up the back three, with young Ben Johnson and Vladimir Coufal either side of them.
The big change for West Ham comes in midfield, where Mark Noble drops out of the team in place of Manuel Lanzini.
Said Benrahma clearly has not done enough to impress Moyes as of yet, so Lanzini is the man he may call upon to give the Hammers more creativity in the final third.
West Ham drastically lacked any sort of creative spark against Brighton and Moyes has to address that this time around.
The game is also likely to come too soon for the returning Michail Antonio, so the Hammers boss may have to stick with both Jarrod Bowen and Sebastien Haller as the club’s source of goals.
In other West Ham news, the Hammers can beat Southampton if they exploit Saints defensive weakness