West Ham are in good shape heading into Saturday’s game with Aston Villa. A series of hard fought and well won games, plus a strong comeback to draw from being two goals down against Stoke City, have led to West Ham going into the weekend in 5th place. West Ham’s renewal in form has led to Stewart Downing getting an England call-up and widespread praise coming in for Alex Song and Diafra Sakho.
Our last game, in which we went behind at Stoke, showed another new side to West Ham – a side in which we could actually claw our way back from a deficit. The players didn’t let the goals destroy them, they actually kept on playing, and this attitude lead to an outstanding performance from Downing and the equalisers to get us a hard earned point.
Aston Villa, on the other hand, are sitting perilously in 16th place in the league. Villa are just one point clear of the relegation zone after having lost their last six league games. They had to cancel their October ‘Goal of the Month’ competition after they didn’t score a single goal during the entire month. Rumour has it that under-fire manager Paul Lambert must get a result at Upton Park in order to keep his job (remember kids – no matter how good West Ham get, we will always be the litmus test for whether or not a manager should be sacked if they fail to beat us.)
It has been pleasant to see both Sam Allardyce and Paul Lambert show a degree of respect and mutual support for each other in the press this week, with Allardyce saying how “unlucky” Lambert was to have lost to Spurs, and enforced that Lambert believes in himself and his team to bounce back, whilst Lambert compared his situation at Villa with that of Sam’s at West Ham when results were not going our way, saying “Sam’s been through it and he has been there and bought the t-shirt. That’s what you do, you come through it.” Bless.
Team News:
Aston Villa are unlucky to be without star player Christian Benteke after he was red carded for retaliating against Spurs midfielder Ryan Mason on Sunday. West Ham are boosted by the news that top goalscorer Diafra Sakho could return to the squad after suffering a shoulder injury, defender Winston Reid could return after suffering a dead leg, and Andy Carroll – no really – THE Andy Carroll could make a return to the squad after playing for 60 minutes in a behind-closed-doors friendly this week.
Match Prediction:
A team who haven’t scored a goal in a month and haven’t won a game since September 13th is definitely the kind of team last year’s West Ham United would have lost to. I’d expect a West Ham win, but remember that Aston Villa are playing for their lives here – and that their last win was against Liverpool. I think we’ll win it, but just by one goal; perhaps 2-1 to us.
Last 5 Premier League Meets:
L W L D W
L (1-2) April 6, 2011
W (1-0) August 18, 2012
L (1-2) February 2, 2013
D (0-0) November 2, 2013
W (2-1) February 8, 2014
Last 5 games:
West Ham
L W W W D
Aston Villa
L L L L L
