New West Ham United manager Slaven Bilic is expected to take the dug-out at Upton Park for the first time this evening as the Hammers face Birkirkara in the first leg of the Europa League second qualifying round (7.45pm kick-off).

The Hammers progressed past Andorran club FC Lusitans 4-0 on aggregate score whilst the Maltese team beat Armenian outfit Ulisses 3-1 on aggregate.

Birkirkara qualified for the competition by winning the Maltese Super Cup and have played in European competitions 17 times.

However, the Maltese side have only won three of their 19 European matches and the Hammers are strong favourites to progress to the third qualifying stage.

West Ham will be without striker Diafra Sakho and Dimitri Payet, both of whom serve suspensions, but are boosted by the availability of their new signing Pedro Obiang.

A strong team is set to be fielded by new boss Bilic, who will be in the dugout for the first time at Upton Park after sitting out the Lusitans home leg.

Senior players Kevin Nolan, Mark Noble, Aaron Creswell and Winston Reid may feature for the Hamemrs, who named a youthful XI in both legs of the first qualifying round.

This is West Ham's first European campaign since they took part in the forerunner to the Europa League, the UEFA Cup, in 2006.