West Ham v Man City
West Ham lost their first Premier League match in 9 when going down 1-2 to Newcastle at St James Park last weekend. Previous to this defeat Slaven Bilic’s side had won 3 matches on the bounce, and indeed they are having an excellent season. This defeat left the Hammers in 6th place on 35 points and West Ham’s recent home record reads a decent looking W6, D5, L4.
When hosting the elite Premier League sides, West Ham’s record reads an average looking W3, D1, L6 and here they can be backed at around 5.40. If you do fancy West Ham to do well then you have the option of keeping an element of the 1 goal defeat on your side , and they can be backed on the +0.5/1.0 goal handicap at around 2.05 and this looks to offer some value.
The recent head-to-head record at Upton Park is mixed and reads West Ham 1 wins, 1 Draw and Manchester City 2 wins.
The draw can be backed at around 4.00 and this looks to offer some very good value and should certainly be given some serious consideration.
Manchester City are coming into this game on the back of a very comfortable 4-0 home victory over Crystal Palace. With both Leicester and Arsenal failing to win last weekend, City closed the gap on their rivals and currently they sit in 3rd place on 43 points, which is just 1 behind leaders Arsenal. Manchester City’s recent away form reads a reasonable looking W6, D3, L6.
When facing top half teams away from the Etihad, City boast a good record that reads W5, D2, L3 and here they can be backed at around 1.72.
As far as goals are concerned then the stats and my ratings suggest a leaning to unders. When looking at both sides' last 10 home and away games to similar opposition then we see that in the 20 matches, 4 games have seen 4 or more goals, 7 have seen 3, whilst 9 have seen 2 or less goals scored. 4 or more goals have also only been seen in 2 of West Ham’s last 15 home games and 3 of City’s last 15 away. Under 2.5/3.0 goals can be backed at around 1.92.
This looks a decent match up and my ratings suggest value both in the match and goal lines. As we have seen, Under 2.5/3.0 goals looks to offer some decent risk v reward. For my trade I am turning to the match line where the value lies with the home side. West Ham are now undefeated in 8 home games and indeed they have only lost 1 of their last 27 home games by 2 or more goals. Here they are coming up against a Manchester City side that have only won 1 of their last 7 away, and that was an unconvincing win at Watford. Here there looks some decent risk v reward backing the home side on the handicap. So my recommended trade is West Ham +0.5/1.0 goal at around 2.05.