West Ham United welcome Leicester City to the London Stadium in the first Monday Night Football clash of 2021-22 Premier League season.
Victory could see West Ham climb to third whereas Leicester would go into the top four with a win.
Team News
Arthur Masuaku is West Ham’s only injury absentee as he continues to recover from a knee injury.
Leicester is set to have James Maddison available after struggling with a lower back injury, which forced him off in the second half of last weekend’s victory over Wolves.
Timothy Castagne is also in contention after receiving his protective face mask and participating in full first-team training.
Ryan Bertrand (Coronavirus), Jonny Evans (foot), James Justin, Wesley Fofana (both knee) and Nampalys Mendy (groin) remain ruled out.
Stat Attack
- West Ham are unbeaten in four of their last six league meetings against Leicester (W2, D2, L2).
- Leicester have lost just one of their last six trips to West Ham (W3, D2, L1), with Kelechi Iheanacho scoring three of the Foxes’ last four goals at London Stadium.
- Last season marked the first time that West Ham scored at least three goals against Leicester in both fixtures of one season since 1967-68 campaign, winning both fixtures 4-2 in December 1967.
- West Ham are winless in their last three opening home matches of a new season (L3), having won their first two home games of 2016-17 and 17-18 seasons at London Stadium.
- Leicester have won just one of their last five opening away matches in a new season (W1, D1, L3), although the Foxes has scored in their first away games in each of last six campaigns.
Prediction
After mounting a ruthless yet clinical comeback at Newcastle with their sharp counter-attacks, West Ham come here high on confidence but need to make sure that their defensive focus is better because Leicester won’t be as forgiving and easy to overcome if they get the lead at half-time.
Having won both of their two matches so far this season by a single goal, Leicester come into this match in strong form, although their high-pressure attacks did open up spaces against Wolves last weekend which will give West Ham something to sniff at if they’re clinical enough.
On that note, I have a feeling that we could see the stand-out tie of the weekend here because both teams will be up for this so I expect goals and a high-scoring draw wouldn’t be a surprise.
Prediction: West Ham 2-2 Leicester City
Result: West Ham 4-1 Leicester City