Slaven Bilic’s side will welcome the Gunners to Boleyn Ground this Saturday. This will be a decisive match for both the sides as both of them will need those three points to keep their late season ambitions alive. This will be a final meeting between both the sides this season. If Arsenal win, then the victory will place a pressure on Leicester and Tottenham. Furthermore, if West Ham win, they would move level on points with fourth-placed Manchester City.
Arsene Wenger though had an easy game last time against Watford but this will be a test of his tactics. Arsene Wenger have a good record at Upton park, but, he will face a completely different side this Saturday.
In Arsenal’s last premier league fixture, they had a comfortable victory against Watford where Iwobi and Sanchez completely dominated the game. Both registered a goal and an assist to their names. Whereas, West Ham United had a tricky game last time against Crystal Palace where the game was settled on a point. Payet scored and amazing curly free kick that day beating the 7 man Palace’s wall.
The last fixture that was played between the two sides was a complete humiliation for Arsene Wenger. Dimitri Payet, Angelo Ogbonna, and Cheikhou Kouyate had a very important that day at Emirates as the side was able to beat the Gunners by a comfortable margin of 2 goals to nil. So, Arsene Wenger is surely aware of the damages that Payet and Kouyate can cause.
Team News-
West ham United are having a clean chit as almost all of their star players are completely fit. Only James Collins and Sam Byram will be unavailable to Bilic for Saturday’s clash though both return to training on Friday and should be available soon.
Lookin at the Arsenal’s side, Petr Cech will be available for the Gunners this time and Aaron Ramsey might also be available after making an encouraging progress on his thigh injury.
Flamini might also return to the game as he is also showing some good signs. But, Rosicky, Chamberlain, Wilshere, and Cazorla will be out of the games due to their respective injuries.
Lineups-
West Ham United-
Adrian
Tomkins, Ried, Ogbonna, Cresswell
Kouyate, Noble, Antonio, Lanzini, Payet
Caroll
Arsenal-
Cech
Bellerin, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Monreal
Coquelin, Ramsey
Sanchez, Ozil, Sanchez
Giroud
Key Stats-
West Ham United are looking to win both matches against Arsenal in the same Barclays Premier League season for the first time since 2006/07.
Arsenal’s defeat to the Hammers (0-2) on the opening weekend of this campaign ended a run of nine consecutive league wins against them.
Arsene Wenger has won nine and lost just two of his 16 BPL visits to the Boleyn Ground (W9 D5 L2). The only away ground he has won more often at in the league are Goodison Park and Villa Park (both 10 wins).
Olivier Giroud has found the net five times in six league outings against West Ham, but just one of these has been netted at the Boleyn Ground.
Prediction-
It is a tough one to predict. Both the sides are performing out of their skins and both have their ambitions set high. Looking at their form from their last six games, both have won 3 of them but Arsenal have lost 2 and West ham none. If predicting the score accordingly, then, West ham will be a clear winner but that won’t be a case for sure. Arsenal will be looking to take their revenge of their first fixture’s defeat.
2-3 Arsenal