West Ham make the short trip across London tonight to take on Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium.
Both sides come into the match in dire form, but the Hammers’ struggles are much the more troubling, despite the reduced talk on the subject.
West Ham come into the match on the back of four consecutive losses, and have dropped to within six points of the relegation zone. Arsenal have simply dropped out of the top four, but a win today could well see them return to the battle for the Champions League spots.
A win today for Arsenal would see them leapfrog Manchester United into fifth spot on goal difference, and should Premier League leaders Chelsea beat Manchester City, it would leave us only four points from fourth spot with a game in hand.
We are into the most crucial part of the campaign, and as usual we are not able to fight in with a full strength squad. We come into the game with doubts over both Petr Cech and David Ospina, with Emiliano Martinez set to stand-in in goal. Santi Cazorla, Leurent Koscielny and Lucas Perez are also sidelined. Francis Coquelin is also a doubt to raise further questions over our playing squad, but our opponents have their fair share of absentees.
Predicted XI:
Martinez
Bellerin Mustafi Mertesacker Monreal
Xhaka Oxlade
Walcott Ozil Sanchez
Welbeck
Our team should be able to deal with our list on the sidelines better than the Hammers, and we should add further woes to our rivals hopes to survive relegation. We will need to score goals however, and hopefully Per Mertesacker will be able to replace some of the leadership lost by the absences of Cech and Kosc.
I expect this team to bring goals, but a clean sheet may not be so easy to come by. I expect to come away with three or four goals, with our rivals hopefully limited to just the one. 3-1?
Will we have to concentrate on outscoring W. Ham? Could Martinez save the day?
Pat J