Premier League Preview: Forest joy, United's inconsistency and other questions

Premier League GW9 preview: Can Nuno steady West Ham vs Leeds? Forest's Euro win spark hope? Liverpool, Utd vs Brentford tests.

Sean Dyche has restored hope at the City Ground after a debut win in the Europa League however, is it sustainable? (Photo credit: Sky Sports)

The Premier League is back with a bang on Friday for the first game of game week 9, it’s the visit of West Ham to Elland Road, it’s in fact the Hammers’ second game in five days after being involved in Monday Night Football this week.

This is an opportunity for Nuno Espirito Santo to put the shameful performance of Monday to rest; he wouldn’t want to end up like Ange Postecoglou, and while the West Ham owners aren’t too reactive like Evangelos Marinakis, you won’t put it past them to make changes if results don’t improve.

That leads us to our first question for the weekend. Is Nuno Espírito Santo the right man for the Hammers? They were conceding set-piece goals in all their games before Nuno; that hasn’t changed, and it even looks worse if you consider the home loss to Brentford.

In attack, West Ham has become blunt. Apart from Jarrod Bowen, who tries a few tricks here and there, there’s nothing in the Hammers’ attack that inspires confidence. Can the former Wolves, Spurs and Forest manager stabilise the ship and steer them out of the drop zone?

The second question is for Sean Dyche and Nottingham Forest. For the first time since the opening day of the season, Forest won again, and this time, it’s in Europe, where a 2-0 success over Porto raised the roof of the City Ground for the first time this season. Have they now found the right formula?

Ange Postecoglou was hired on the grounds of the club looking to win something; it took 39 days for the owner to realise it won’t work. Has he seen enough to consider Sean Dyche as a potential winner, or is it about staying in the league this season now?

Up next for Forest is a trip to Bournemouth; you can already predict a potential goalless draw as they will sit deep and watch their opponents play. That worked under NES. Are they going to be fine from here? Or will Bournemouth return them to planet Earth?

Finally, for our questions of the week, we look at the two teams who took part in the game of the weekend last time out, champions Liverpool and their conquerors, Manchester United. How will both of them fare this weekend?

Liverpool went on to beat Frankfurt silly in the Champions League; has that win restored confidence at Anfield? Will they be able to put Brentford to the sword? For United, can they make it three on the bounce against Brentford so their famous fan can finally get a haircut?