Lets not beat around the bush. Manchester City have scored 100 Premier League goals this campaign, a whole 60 more than West Ham. They are also on a four-game win streak.
There’s no doubting where you would stick your money – on West Ham – largely because the odds on Man City aren’t worth any stake. This Premier League has been full of fantastic shocks this season and there’s always room for one or two more.
“We’ll win, we have to!” – Manchester City fans
“They’ll win, I know it!” – Liverpool fans
“Who cares?” – Chelsea fans
West Ham certainly can win, of course it’s unlikely, but that’s football. We’d all be very rich if it was entirely predictable.
Manchester City only needed four points from Aston Villa and West Ham, and they took all three from Villa, despite a shaky first hour. Aston Villa (who have the fourth worst defence in the league) held Manchester City relatively comfortably for 2/3 of the match. Therefore, why can’t West Ham, with the eighth best defence in the league not go one third further?
Liverpool are to be reliant on ex-players Andy Carroll and Stewart Downing, and also childhood Liverpool fan, Kevin Nolan to fight for them. Maybe a good thing, maybe not. But with West Ham now mathematically safe from relegation for the first time this season, will the fight have disappeared or will the lack of pressure unleash The Hammers? Manchester City will certainly be nervous, with the fact that they now only need a point to win the Premier League, the pressure on them is not as immense as it could have been.
Of course the last two meetings between the sides was in the Capital One Cup semi-final where it was a tense, close-run 9-0 victory for Manchester City.
The hopes of half of Liverpool will be pinned on West Ham, but there will be very little pressure on The Hammers. Perhaps the West Ham players would like to celebrate with the City lads after the game. It’s a difficult one to call as West Ham haven’t had the pressure off for the entire season, and therefore how they are going to react is anyone’s guess.
So of course, West Ham can beat Manchester City, it will be against the odds but after all, all they have to do is stop Yaya Toure and Sergio Aguero*.
* and Edin Dzeko, David Silva, Samir Nasri, Pablo Zabaleta, Aleksandar Kolarov, Stevan Jovetic and Alvaro Negredo.
