Overview
West Ham United will begin their journey to conquer the Championship after being relegated from the Premier League for the first time in 14 years. The London Stadium team finished last season in 18th place with 39 points, 2 points behind Tottenham Hotspur in the fierce relegation race.
Although unable to help the team stay in the Premier League, coach Nuno Espirito Santo still received trust from the board of directors. In the summer transfer window, West Ham parted ways with two key players, Mateus Fernandes and Crysencio Summerville, but successfully kept captain Jarrod Bowen. In addition, The Hammers bought Keiber Lamadrid outright and added experience with defender Joel Veltman from Brighton.
West Ham's preparation for the new season is going quite positively. They maintain a 5-match unbeaten streak in the pre-season friendly series, including two wins and 3 draws. In the most recent general rehearsal, West Ham drew with Magdeburg 0-0, thereby creating confidence before the Championship starts.
Head-to-head history also brings optimistic signals for West Ham as they are unbeaten in their last six encounters with Portsmouth.
In the opposite direction, Portsmouth entered their third consecutive season in the Championship after successfully staying in the league with 18th place last season. The southern coastal team of England aims to improve their performance with a series of additions such as Odin Bailey, Rocco Shein, Eion Kenny, Luke Brooke-Smith, Marko Milovanovic and Daniel Bielica.
Portsmouth are still pursuing the loan deal for young talent Kavuma-McQueen from Chelsea and want to bring Abu Kamara back to Fratton Park after a successful period of playing on loan.
In the pre-season period, Portsmouth played 7 friendly matches with a record of two wins, three draws and two losses. Coach John Mousinho's team closed the preparation process with a 0-0 draw against Darmstadt in Germany and a 2-0 victory over Kuwait SC in a closed match.
Portsmouth's immediate goal is to get through the first round of the Carabao Cup after two consecutive seasons of being eliminated right in the opening match. Meanwhile, West Ham is also aiming for a favorable start to create momentum for the goal of returning to the Premier League soon.
Personnel situation
Midfielder Tomas Soucek will be absent from the upcoming match as he has not yet recovered from his ankle injury sustained at the 2026 World Cup. West Ham also does not have the service of Keiber Lamadrid, who is expected to be out of action for two to three weeks after suffering an injury in the friendly match with Magdeburg.
In the opposite direction, new signing Joel Veltman is likely to make his debut after moving from Brighton in the summer transfer window.
On the Portsmouth side, the injury list includes Josef Bursik, Conor Ogilvie, Jacob Farrell, Marlon Pack, Mark Kosznovszky, Harvey Blair and Josh Murphy.
Franco Umeh will be further assessed for his fitness after leaving the field early as a precautionary measure in the closed-door match against Kuwait SC. Meanwhile, Colby Bishop is expected to start in attack because Marko Milovanovic still needs more time to regain his fitness.
Expected lineup:
West Ham: Hermansen, Walker-Peters, Mavropanos, Kilman, Scarles, Kante, Orford, Bowen, Pablo, Cornet, Taty.
Schmid, Devlin, Poole, Shaughnessy, Swanson, Adams, Shein, Segecic, Bailey, Kenny, Bishop.
The match between West Ham and Portsmouth takes place at 9:00 PM on August 8th (Vietnam time).
