GW 22: West Ham vs. Arsenal

After last weekend's FA cup fixtures we return to Premier League football as West Ham take on Arsenal. Although both teams are in the top 10 coming into this match, they have been patchy over the course of the season with Arsenal in 5th place and West Ham in 10th. Also, both of the teams have been inconsistent in their defence as Arsenal have conceded 31 and West Ham have conceded 32 over the course of the season, so we could definitely be in for a very high scoring affair. In the last 6 meetings between the sides, Arsenal are unbeaten winning 5 and drawing 1. This includes the reverse fixture at the beginning of the season where Arsenal won 3-1 after recovering from a Arnautovic strike early in the match. Although Arsenal did win last time out, the win was not thoroughly convincing with expected goals predicting the match at 1.79 to 1.18, and with West Ham at home in the match they might be able to turn the tables.

Although West Ham have massively improved from the beginning of the season, they have still been inconsistent and they haven’t always been able to get results against teams near the bottom of the table. At the moment the Hammers are in a bad patch of form without a win from their last 2 matches. To add on to this they have only won once in their last 4 losing to Burnley and Watford during this period. In mathes against the top 6, they’ve been below average winning only 1 and losing 4 from 6 matches. In these big games they have often shown their problems in defence as they have conceded 4 goals to the likes of Liverpool and Manchester City while conceding 3 to Arsenal earlier in the season. This will definitely need to improve as Arsenal are a strong attacking side with the 4th most goals scored in the competition. West Ham’s last match was against Brighton and Hove Albion where they drew 2-2 after coming back from 2 goals down. Again, West Ham showed their defensive insecurities letting in 2 goals in 2 minutes after halftime but they were able to recover, and Marko Arnautovic scored 2 goals to get them a point from the match. Arsenal are a much better side than Brighton though and this performance will need to be improved upon if West Ham want any points from the match.

In this match, defensive quality will be very important for the Hammers and Declan Rice has been one of the most defensively stable players in the West Ham squad. From his defensive midfield role, he is currently making 3.8 tackles and interceptions a game. He’ll be matched up against the likes of Ozil, Ramsey and Lacazette who are all supreme attackers and his defending will be much needed. Rice is also a good deep lying playmaker as he is currently completing 42 passes per match. This quality will also be needed in this match because Arsenal are a team who really struggle when out of possession. Now that Arnautovic is back in the side, he should be another player to watch out for, as he’s come back from injury in good form. Before suffering a bad injury to his knee, Arnautovic had scored 5 and assisted 2 from 1177 minutes averaging a direct goal contribution every 168 minutes in the Premier League. He returned to action 2 game weeks ago and last week, he looked back at his best scoring a brace to get West Ham a point. In the match at hand, you would definitely expect him to cause problems for this Arsenal defence who haven’t looked confident recently.

Arsenal have struggled recently and are in great danger of losing their 5th place spot that they have kept for the majority of the season. This is because Manchester United have won their last 4 and are now only 3 points behind the North London side. Arsenal have also fallen behind Chelsea in recent weeks and there is now a 3 point gap between the sides. With the table so close at the moment, Arsenal are under a lot of pressure to improve on their poor run of form. In their last 7 games they have won only 3 times which is poor considering the talent that they have in their squad. This period includes 2 losses where they lost to Southampton and Liverpool respectively. During this period they looked defensively insecure during almost all of the mathes and conceded 13 goals throughout the 7 matches keeping only 1 clean sheet when at home to Huddersfield. They haven’t kept a single clean sheet in their last 5 matches and you’d expect that they would concede quite a few against this capable attacking side of West Ham. In their last match they again showed weakness while defending as Fulham were unlucky not to go 2 goals up against the home side. If Sessegnon had taken his early chances in the first half the story could have been entirely different although Arsenal were very good on the attack scoring 4 with their expected goals at 4.43. In the match we saw much of the same from Arsenal as they were promising and quick when attacking but poor without possession. West Ham have many elite attacking players and if Arsenal continue in the style that they have been playing over the last few games they could definitely find many problems in this match.

Sead Kolasinac will be one to watch in this match as his attacking output from wing-back has impressed in recent matches. From 10 PL appearances this season he has managed 3 assists and is slowly bedding himself into Emery’s side after starting the season out of favour. He has been very productive on the attacking end of the spectrum with 1.8 key passes and 0.6 dribbles a match. Also, although not considered the best quality of his game, his defensive record is quite impressive as he is making 2.4 tackles and interceptions a match which is often overlooked. His strong transition play will be important in the match against a West Ham side who usually play high up the field. Lacazette will also be expected to play well if he is given a chance in this match. Lacazette has had somewhat of a renaissance up front this season but he has still been limited in his playing time which he has been notably frustrated about on a number of occasions. In 13 starts and 7 substitute appearances he has scored 7 times and produced 5 assists with a goal contribution every 107 minutes in the Premier League. This is quite superb considering Aubameyang is being praised for a goal contribution every 96 minutes while playing in a more advanced role and more regularly. Also Lacazette has higher dribble numbers and equal key pass numbers as Aubameyang and will definitely be a threat for West Ham.

Both teams have a number of injury problems coming into the match with West Ham suffering 9 potential injuries to their senior squad. These include, Balbuena, Reid, Fredericks, Sanchez, Wilshere, Lanzini, Yarmolenko, Hernandez and most worryingly, Arnautovic. The biggest issues out of these players are Balbuena, Hernandez and Arnautovic who have all been consistent starters when fit this season. Luckily for the Hammers, both Balbuena and Arnautovic have a chance of making it back for the match but Hernandez is guaranteed to miss out. If Arnautovic were to miss out, West Ham would lose most of their attacking power, especially with Hernandez out as well, and they could find it hard to score, even against a weak defence. Arsenal are also facing a large number of injury problems with Ozil, Mkhitaryan and Mustafi the main problems and also with Holding, Koscielny, Monreal, Mavropanos, Bellerin and Welbeck with injuries of varying degrees of importance. With all these defenders out, Arsenal might continue their defensive woes in this match especially if they have to use a back 4 that they’ve been poor with this season.

Neither of these teams come into the match in great form and with a number of players injured coming into the match, we could have a scrappy game on our hands. You’d be right to expect a lot of goals from the match as there have been more than 2 goals in 9 of Arsenal's last 10 away games and West Ham have conceded 2 or more in 5 of their last 6 home matches. Although both sides have many injuries, if Arnautovic can make it back to full fitness West Ham could have a big advantage in the match simply because of the amount of injuries Arsenal have to one position. Overall, it should be a tight match with lots of goals and I predict the final score will be 2-2.