GW 32: West Ham vs. Everton

This weekend we have an enticing mid table battle taking place between West Ham and Everton on Saturday. Both of these teams are involved in the incredibly close and competitive dog fight that has taken over the middle of the table for practically the entire season. With only 6 points separating the 7th to 12th place teams, both the sides that are taking place in this match fall right in the middle of this action with West Ham in 9th and Everton in 11th and only 2 points separating them, meaning a win for either team would mean bettering their opponents in the league table. In seasons gone by, this fixture has been relatively close and in recent history, West Ham have won 3 of the last 6 Premier League matches between them with Everton winning 2 while 1 came out level. The earlier match this season between the sides ended in a 3-1 West Ham victory and although this scoreline seems fairly convincing, the underlying stats show otherwise, even perhaps hinting that West Ham were lucky to gain any points at all. Everton had 16 shots in the match to the Hammers’ 9 while both teams had a total of 4 shots on target but expected goals actually shows that West Ham had slightly better chances in the match, predicting a 1.52 to 1.27 scoreline in favour of them. This is only a slight margin but it does show that West Ham might have been the better side in the match and with them at home in the upcoming fixture, you can see them obtaining a similar result.

West Ham’s season has gone quite well up to this point and although they might have been expecting slightly more given the amount of money they spent in the summer, they’ve managed to make it into the top 10 and with some decent results recently, consistency has been the key factor that they’ve been missing. In their last 5 matches they’ve won 3 while losing 2 and while one of their losses came against City in a match that you feel they were massive underdogs, the other came against Cardiff who actually dominated the game and considering the Bluebirds are currently in 18th, this result is quite unacceptable for a team of West Ham’s stature. Their last match featured another disappointing performance but this time they managed to win narrowly against bottom side Huddersfield, as after a brilliant comeback they obtained a 4-3 scoreline. They were down 3-1 with only 15 minutes to go but they managed to turn their fortunes around just in time to save them from what would have been an extremely embarrassing loss. In reality, although the match was very high scoring neither team managed to create too many clear cut chances with a total of 10 shots on target while expected goals predicted a 1.88 to 1.67 final score. The expected goals shows that the match was very close though and that West Ham were quite lucky to win the match and against a much stronger attacking side they’ll have to improve massively as they look forwards to their next fixture.

Felipe Anderson has been one of West Ham’s key players this season and although he hasn’t been directly contributing to goals as frequently recently, he still poses a clear threat for the opposition. Anderson has scored 8 and assisted 4 this season making him West Ham’s highest contributing player and with him coming off the left of midfield he will be largely in charge of West Ham’s creative game. In this match Anderson could look to find space centrally in order to drag out both Coleman and Idrissa Gueye who are some of Everton’s strongest defensive presences. The space he vacates down the left can then be occupied by one of either Masuaku or Cresswell who are both left-backs who love to attack down the wing while Declan Rice can shift slightly to the left while Noble stays deeper than Lanzini. Rice will also be very important in this match as he’s is one of the Hammers’ stand out defensive players. Although he plays as a defensive midfielder, he was originally a centre-back and this switch in position means that he does have the tactical ability to drop deeper in order to cover space and the 4.4 tackles and interceptions that he is making per match shows that he is clearly an adept defensive player as well.

Everton have been enduring a far more disappointing season then West Ham as they are not only worse in the league table but you would think that they have the higher quality players as well, which should raise their expectations. Everton actually started the season quite well but it’s been their recent form that’s knocked them out of the top half of the table and although their form has been getting slightly better over their last couple of games, they still have a long way to go before they reach their full potential. Saying this, their last match ended in a very promising 2-0 victory over Chelsea in which they played some of their best football since going on their run of poor form. Chelsea dominated the possession as you would expect and while they took 1 more shot than their opponents, Everton actually managed 3 more on target and a higher expected goals value with the metric predicting a 2.24 to 1.24 scoreline. What’s impressive about this Everton performance is that they limited Chelsea to only 16 shots and although this is above the league average it is right about the amount that Chelsea usually take, which for Everton, who have been poor defensively, is what they would have hoped for. To continue this solid defending, Everton could look to play Coleman more centrally while allowing Digne to stay wide and slightly advanced while using a more defensive right-midfielder to restrict West Ham’s wing-back play.

The experienced right-back Seamus Coleman has been very important to Everton this season and he’s looked phenomenal when he’s played in recent matches keeping a clean sheet in all of his last 3 Premier League starts. He is making 2.5 tackles and interceptions per match and although these aren’t elite numbers they are slightly above average for a full-back while he’s actually seen his defensive contribution rise over his past few games. Like mentioned earlier, he could be employed as the deeper of the two full-backs while also moving centrally to track Felipe Anderson as this will give Gueye more defensive freedom so that he can do his job in other areas. Gueye has been superb this season and is one of the top defensive contributors in the league with an incredible 6.4 tackles and interceptions per match as he’s proved himself to be one of the elite defensive midfielders in the Premier League. He’ll have a big job to do in this match as both Felipe Anderson and Manuel Lanzini will be in his general vicinity and both these players are high class creators. Like usual, Gueye will most likely drop deeper than his central midfield partner and therefore his defensive ability will also be needed when defending against West Ham’s deadly counter-attacking and overall, he’ll have to be at the top of his game with so many possible threats coming from this West Ham side.

In terms of injuries West Ham have a number of players out, however, almost all of these players have been suffering from long term issues and have therefore been missing for quite a while already. Reid, Sanchez, Wilshere and Yarmolenko have all been out for very extended periods of time now and West Ham have proven that they can play well without them while Andy Carroll is a more recent addition to the list as his ankle injury could keep him out for a while. Because the Hammers are so used to playing without most of these players their absences shouldn’t cause too many problems and they have enough power up front to not need to worry too badly about Andy Carroll either. Everton have a few minor injuries to their squad with Mina, Jagielka, Digne and Gomes all potentially missing, however, all of these players are likely to return before game time. If any of these players were to miss this match it would pose quite a big problem for Everton as all of them apart from Jagielka have been regular first team starters and while Mina played very well in the last match, both Digne and Gomes have been providing consistent attacking threat throughout the season. Also, the possible defensive structure that was mentioned earlier, could be ruined without Digne’s ability to attack while also hugging the touchline.

The mid table clashes are really starting to heat up due to the small point gap between teams, and, while West Ham are ahead in the league table, there is virtually nothing between these sides. The intensity of this match is also furthered by the fact that both of these teams have had largely inconsistent campaigns meaning the outcome is difficult to predict at this stage. Something else that needs to be looked at is the venue that this match is going to be played at and as it’s in London, West Ham suddenly look to have the advantage in the match. When at home, the Hammers have won all of their last 3 matches while scoring 2 or more in every one of these which shows that although they don’t have too much of an overall consistency to their game, they’ve managed to create somewhat of a fortress when at the London Stadium. This is a trend we’ve seen from them throughout the season as they’ve managed an incredible 64% of their points when at home and  comparatively, Everton have been dreadful when away with only 37.5% of their points coming when travelling. Because of this I’m predicting a 2-1 victory in favour of West Ham.