West Ham United is hosting Liverpool at London Stadium in part of postponed round 18 of the English Premier League.
West Ham is a complete disaster this season and they haven’t won any of their last 4 games while losing 6 of their last 8 games. West Ham has only 23 points from 23 games and is in 17th place in the EPL standings, just one spot outside the relegation zone, but with the same number of points as Bournemouth and Watford in 18th and 19th place. Offensively, West Ham isn’t bad with 27 scored goals, but their defense is really bad with 38 conceded goals. West Ham played against West Bromwich in the FA Cup this past weekend and has lost 0-1 at home and got knocked out of the competition. In their last EPL match against Leicester City away from home, Hammers were by far the worse team. West Ham had only 33% of ball possession, 2 shots on goal, 8 corner kicks, and 68% of the correct passes. Everything that can go wrong, went wrong for West Ham in this game and they lost 4-1. A few weeks ago, West Ham fired their coach Manuel Pellegrini and hired another former coach David Moyes, but sadly nothing changed for West Ham. They are still bad team, with terrible defense, weak offense, and are playing bad soccer overall. The good news for West Ham could be that they are playing only in the EPL for the rest of the season after getting knocked out of the FA Cup. Sebastian Heller is the leading goal scorer for the Hammers with 6 goals, Mark Noble has 4 goals. Wilshere, Yarmolenko, Fredericks, Fabianski, and Anderson are all important players that could make this team a lot better, but they are all injured and coach Moyes will not have them at his disposal. The Premier League schedule is not a friend of West Ham because, after this game, West Ham is playing against City, Liverpool again, Arsenal, Wolverhampton, Tottenham. All top teams who are hard to beat. It’s going to be a long and hard second half of the EPL season for the Hammers.
Liverpool is the best team in Europe, and they have been for a while. In the EPL Liverpool is at the top with 67 points, and still going strong and undefeated. Earlier this week, Liverpool was playing against the lower-division league and tied the game 2-2, but that was Liverpool without their main players who were being rested by coach Klopp. In their last 5 games Liverpool has scored 8 goals and even though it may seem like Liverpool is struggling a bit on the offensive end, trust me they are not. Liverpool is a team that is playing patient soccer with high pressure and they are constantly outrunning their opponents. In their last EPL match against Wolverhampton away from home, Liverpool had 54% of ball possession, 6 shots on goal, 4 corner kicks, and 83% of accurate passes. This was a fantastic game for both teams where Liverpool had the 0-1 lead at half-time. In the 51st minute, Wolverhampton has tied the game and the score stands until 84th minute when Firmino scored a winning goal for Liverpool. Salah and Mane have both scored 11 goals for Liverpool this season, while Firmino added 8 goals. Alexender-Arnold who is probably the best right-back in the world right now added 10 assists. Clyne and Milner are the only two injured players, which means Lovren, Fabinho, and Matip are ready to play. The return of these three players will give coach Klopp some more depth on the defensive end just in time before the Champions League is back. In the Champions League, Liverpool is facing Atletico Madrid, a team that is no match to them offensively, but Atletico is one of the best defensive teams out there and certainly can’t be underestimated. I’m confident that Liverpool will win the EPL title, and with every passing game, I believe Liverpool will win the said title without a loss.
There is absolutely no way I’m putting my money on West Ham. The Hammers are a good team led by poor coach and are in real danger of getting relegated. Liverpool is playing great and won’t have any trouble winning another three points away from home.
Goran’s Pick Liverpool -1.5 +100
AUTHOR: Goran Kucar
Follow Goran Kucar on Twitter @GoranKucar