Head Coach Graham Potter has handed Mads Hermansen and El Hadji Malick Diouf their full West Ham United debuts in Saturday’s 2025/26 Premier League opening-day fixture at Sunderland.
Hermansen becomes the 26th goalkeeper to feature in the Premier League for West Ham, and the 24th to start a game for the Club in the competition since the Hammers won promotion to the top-flight in 1993.
Hermansen also becomes the first Dane to keep goal for West Ham at senior level, and the third Dane to play for the men’s team after Marc Rieper and Lars Jacobson. Midfielder Emma Snerle also previously played for the women’s team.
Left wing-back Diouf, meanwhile, becomes the eighth Senegalese player to represent West Ham after Henri Camara, Demba Ba, Papa Bouba Diop, Abdoulaye Faye, Mohamed Diamé, Cheikhou Kouyaté and Diafra Sakho. However, Diop and Faye did not play for the Club in the Premier League, meaning Diouf becomes our sixth Senegalese Premier League performer.
Hermansen and Diouf become the 1,110th and 1,111th men’s first-team players to represent the Club in its 130-year history.
So, Hermansen starts in goal behind a back three of Jean-Clair Todibo, Maximilian Kilman and Nayef Aguerd. The Moroccan makes his first West Ham appearance since the UEFA Europa League quarter-final second-leg tie with Bayer Leverkusen at London Stadium on 18 April 2024, as he spent last season on loan in Spain with Real Sociedad.
The wing-back positions will be filled by Hammer of the Year Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Diouf.
The midfield will be anchored by Argentina international Guido Rodríguez, who starts for the 17th time in the Premier League since his summer 2024 arrival from Real Betis.
James Ward-Prowse will play his 405th Premier League game, which ranks him 40th on the competition’s all-time list, three behind former Hammer Stewart Downing.
Brazil international Lucas Paquetá plays as the most advanced of the midfield three.
Up front, captain Jarrod Bowen plays in the Premier League for West Ham for the 194th time. The 28-year-old draws level with substitute Tomáš Souček, who could go to 195 if he appears off the bench. Should Souček appear, he will draw level with the recently departed Łukasz Fabiański in joint-eighth on the Club’s all-time Premier League appearance list.
Bowen is seeking to become the first West Ham player since Jesse Lingard in 2021 to score in five successive Premier League matches, having hit the net in the final four games of last season against Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, Nottingham Forest and Ipswich Town.
Bowen will partner Niclas Füllkrug, who scored in the final three pre-season games against Everton, AFC Bournemouth and LOSC Lille.
Two more players could debut from the substitutes’ bench in wing-back Kyle Walker-Peters, who arrived in July after leaving Southampton, and Callum Wilson, who signed after departing Newcastle United.
The substitutes’ bench will be filled out by Alphonse Areola, Dinos Mavropanos, Ollie Scarles, Edson Álvarez, Freddie Potts and Andy Irving.
Sunderland: Roefs, Hume, Ballard, Seelt, Reinildo, Xhaka ©, Sadiki, Diarra, Talbi, Adingra, Mayenda
Subs: Patterson (GK), Neil, Roberts, Rigg, Alderete, Jones, Le Fée, Isidor, Guiu
West Ham United: Hermansen, Wan-Bissaka, Todibo, Kilman, Aguerd, Diouf, Rodríguez, Ward-Prowse, Paquetá, Bowen ©, Füllkrug
Subs: Areola (GK), Walker-Peters, Scarles, Mavropanos, Álvarez, Potts, Irving, Souček, Wilson
Referee: Rob Jones
