Why Willy Kambwala makes his debut and Raphael Varane absence explained for Man Utd vs West Ham

Willy Kambwala is set to make his Manchester United debut because Raphael Varane is absent due to illness and he's impressed in training.

Varane started against Bayern Munich and Liverpool, but he's absent from the squad to play West Ham on Saturday afternoon and youngster Kambwala has been handed his debut.

Kamwala joined the club from Sochaux for around £3.5million in 2020 and he's progressed through the academy system.

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The defender will become the 248th player from the academy to make his first-team debut and Erik ten Hag, speaking ahead of kick-off, was asked by TNT Sport about the youngster.

After confirming that Varane was unavailable due to illness, he said about Kambwala: "He's calm, he's made a good impression in training, but of course he's inexperienced and this is a big moment for him. He's athletic, calm on the ball and now he has his opportunity."

Ten Hag continued: "We will build on the performance at Liverpool and we want to be better on the ball. I think we had opportunities [against Liverpool], we had the spaces, but we didn't always explore the spaces.

"This is a different game, they aren't as offensive as Liverpool, but we still have to do better on the ball. We had the two chances of the game against Liverpool and in top football, you don't create 10 chances.

"They didn't create one chance from open play and I think all the teams today are well organised. We need to start with better build-up, especially in our game in possession, with triangles, we can do better.

"We all are distracted by Christmas, with family, you want to see them, celebrate, but we have to do our job. We can change the