West Ham United welcome Liverpool to the London Stadium in a teatime clash in the third of a Super Sunday quadruple header.
Victory would see West Ham rise above Liverpool to fourth, whereas a win would see the Reds climb as to third, should Leicester fail to beat Leeds earlier in afternoon.
Team News
West Ham have no fresh injury concerns to report after Tuesday’s away victory at Crystal Palace.
Arthur Masuaku (knee) and Darren Randolph (knock) remain ruled out.
Liverpool will be without Joel Matip after the defender suffered an ankle injury in Thursday’s win at Tottenham.
Fabinho (undisclosed) is also ruled out and joins Naby Keita (muscle), Diogo Jota, Joe Gomez and Virgil Van Dijk (all knee) on sidelines.
Stat Attack
- This is the 50th Premier League clash between West Ham and Liverpool, with the Hammers winning nine of their previous 49 clashes (W9, D10, L30).
- West Ham are winless in last nine meetings against Liverpool (D2, L7).
- Liverpool are unbeaten in four previous trips to the London Stadium (W3, D1).
- No West Ham player has played more crosses so far this season than the 119 produced by Aaron Cresswell in 20 league appearances.
- Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah has created nine through balls in the league so far this season, triple the next most through balls played by a Liverpool player – Jordan Henderson (3).
Prediction
West Ham come into this game in strong form with just one defeat in their last 11 matches across all competitions, yet they made a slow start at Palace on Tuesday which they can’t repeat here but did manage to fight back with excellent energy to their play and clinical finishing.
Liverpool meanwhile continue to look like they are rediscovering their spark after a rough few weeks because they looked unstoppable once they hit their strides at Spurs, with Sadio Mane in particularly proving a tricky player to quieten throughout the game.
Now if Jurgen Klopp can get his Reds to continue that momentum into this match, I feel that we will have to see West Ham go on the defensive here instead of their more attacking style of recent weeks but a draw probably will be the best that they could get if they get their tactics right.
Prediction: West Ham 1-2 Liverpool
Result: West Ham 1-3 Liverpool
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