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Arsenal made light work of the Saints at the weekend. Lots of stray passes and poor decisions in the early stages of the game had Gunners fans hoping that they wouldn’t concede an early goal.
Mikel Arteta’s side broke the deadlock from a well-worked counter-attack that started with goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale, and that set the tone for the rest of the game.
West Ham failed to get a win for the fourth time in the last five top-flight matches at the weekend, a rather lacklustre performance from the Hammers left a lot to be desired as they could only walk away with one point from a goalless stalemate at Turf Moor.
West Ham currently have five defenders out in Aaron Cresswell, Angelo Ogbonna, Ben Johnson, Ryan Fredericks and Kurt Zouma, so it’s all the more impressive that they kept an away clean sheet with a second-string backline.
The latter two are definitely out for the London derby against Arsenal with Cresswell still to be decided if he is fit enough to play.
Both Teams To Score
These two teams have faced each other ten times in the league since the start of the 2016/17 season and Arsenal hold the overwhelming majority with a record of W7-D2-L1. The only loss that Arsenal incurred was a 1-0 defeat at the London Stadium back in 2019, with Declan Rice netting his first goal for West Ham with a curling effort on that occasion.
History tells us that there are normally a few goals in this particular London derby with Arsenal scoring 24 goals across those games whilst the Hammers only managed to score nine, this brings the average match goals to 3.3.
West Ham only managed to score more than once goal on one occasion, which was the last match that these two played against each other which ended 3-3.
Arsenal have a rather impressive home record this year considering how much scrutiny they have come under in the last few months since the Premier League restarted back in August. Indeed, no side has picked up more than the Gunners’ 19 points on home soil this year, accounting for 73% of their points.
That’s the biggest disparity in the league and with West Ham no better away than they are at home (14 points each), this could well go the way of the North Londoners.
The Gunners have won their last six games at home versus theirthe Hammers although it has to be said that the West Ham teams of old are nothing like the one currently assembled David Moyes side who are pushing for a Champions League spot.
Given that West Ham definitely have two key players out of this game who both play centre back together and with the potential of full-backs Aaron Creswell and Ben Jonhson also being out, we fancy BTTS to be the best bet here.
Also considering Arsenal have a tendency to give away cheap goals when under pressure from teams that like to press high up the pitch.
PREDICTION:
BOTH TEAMS TO SCORE
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