West Ham need Pablo and Kante at Lincoln - Nuno knows he 'cannot repeat mistakes'

Pablo Felipe and Mohamadou Kante turned the tide when West Ham United fought back from 2-0 down to claim a valiant Dockers Derby draw with Millwall.

But if Nuno Espirito Santo had started the duo at The Den, would the Hammers have hosted Queens Park Rangers last Friday on the back of five successive Championship victories?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, of course. If the West Ham United boss could turn back the clock to 11am on the morning of September 19th, he’d be forgiven for scrubbing Joel Piroe and Divine Mukasa off the team sheet in favour of Pablo and Mohamadou Kante.

After all, the ineffective Piroe and Mukasa were both off the pitch when Pablo assisted Kante’s long-range daisy-cutting deficit-halver. The Hammers were bullied by a fired-up, physical Millwall before a pair of half-time introductions; bloody nosed and bruised.

Pablo and Kante stepped onto the pitch like a pair of burly club bouncers breaking up a dancefloor scrap, tossing bodies aside like ragdolls. They would stop a brutal beating from becoming a potential crime scene.

Speaking at his pre-match press conference ahead of the midweek trip to Lincoln City, Nuno is expecting a similar test at Sincil Bank. Nuno also knows that West Ham cannot afford another slow start.

Millwall and QPR became the sixth and seventh different team to score the opening goal in a match against the Hammers this season. They have been behind in the first-half in eight of their 12 games across league and cup.

“[Lincoln] are a very good team in terms of what they do. They’re aggressive and physical, so it’s going to be very tough,” Nuno said. “We have to do things different [compared to Millwall], and improve. [Lincoln] might approach things similarly – they are very direct, and they do that well.

“You cannot repeat the same mistakes. I hope we learn from that moment [at The Den].

“It’s going to be a very tough match. There are things we have to improve. We have to start the game better. A good result is important – we need to keep building momentum. We have to analyse many things.

“Against QPR, the way they defended was aggressive, and [the possession] was turned over too many times. The intention is always to start well and be on the front foot.”

If the half-time introductions of Pablo and Kante were the reason why West Ham avoided a humiliating defeat at the hands of arch rivals Millwall, and if Nuno is expecting a similar sort of game against newly-promoted Lincoln, then surely it makes sense to start the both of them on Wednesday night?

Kante is back from suspension. And Pablo very nearly played a major part in a dramatic West Ham win last time out. That was before Pierce Charles kept out a Jarrod Bowen penalty Pablo himself won in stoppage time.

On his first start since the World Cup, the returning Tomas Soucek struggled against an aggressive, high-pressing QPR side. Taty Castellanos barely registered a meaningful contribution, meanwhile, making only 15 touches of the ball. Pablo up top, with Mohamadou Kante in behind, may be the way to go at Lincoln then.