Aston Villa welcome West Ham United to Villa Park in a mouth-watering clash between two Premier League teams punching above their weights this season.
Should Everton lose at Leeds, victory could send Villa up to fifth ahead of West Ham on goal difference, whereas the Hammers can move closer towards a top four spot with a win and stay fifth.
Team News
Aston Villa have no fresh injury concerns to report after beating Southampton on Saturday evening, as Wesley (knee) and Kortney Hause (foot) remain ruled out.
West Ham have no fresh injury concerns after Sunday’s defeat to Liverpool as Darren Randolph remains doubtful with a knock.
Arthur Masuaku meanwhile is still sidelined with a knee injury.
Stat Attack
- Aston Villa have failed to win any of their last five matches against West Ham (D3, L2).
- West Ham have won just one of their last five trips to Villa Park (W1, D2, L2).
- Villa’s Jack Grealish have scored in his last two appearances against West Ham.
- No West Ham player is yet to make a last man tackle this season in the Premier League.
- Just one of Ross Barkley’s three league goals for Villa this season has come from a header.
Prediction
Villa put in a hard-working performance at Southampton to find a clinical winner because they did find themselves defending a lot and brilliantly so, although I am expecting this game to be more competitive in terms of end-to-end action.
West Ham however have to step up their performance because they wasted too many opportunities on Sunday and their defence left far too much space at the rear, which Liverpool took full advantage of and Villa really should target the same given their quality when playing high energy attacking football.
Should David Moyes’ Hammers manage to make those improvements, this could very well be the stand-out game of this midweek otherwise I can see Villa maximising any errors to full effect.
Prediction: Aston Villa 2-1 West Ham
Result: Aston Villa 1-3 West Ham
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