We have a bonus Premier League offering on Wednesday evening, as the rearranged match between the champions Manchester City and struggling West Ham United takes place inside the Etihad Stadium, after high winds forced it to be cancelled a couple of weekends ago.
This will be the first time that City have played since the news broke that they have been banned from European competition so it will be interesting to see what effect that has on their play. West Ham begin the match in the bottom three and could do with a result.
Manchester City
Not only is this the first time that Manchester City have played since that news broke, but it is their first outing since a disappointing loss to Tottenham Hotspur and having had more than two weeks to dwell on that, it will be fascinating to see how they go about their work here. You would think they would be chomping at the bit to get stuck into their work, but there is more of a fragility about City these days which makes them interesting.
It will also be interesting to see how serious City take this match. They are not going to win the title and as it stands they are not playing to get into Europe, so their attention may well turn to their Champions League tie with Real Madrid next week, although that might wait until the weekend as they have a chance to lay a marker down to show that they will be business as usual regardless of what is going on off the pitch.
West Ham United
The lengthy break probably came at the right time for West Ham United, but they come out of it with a real difficult run of fixtures. They face the champions away from home here and then on Monday night they go to the team who will win the title this year in Liverpool, and that is certainly not the run you want when you are in the bottom three. The Hammers are going to need to find a way to get some results soon, but clearly that isn’t going to be easy.
West Ham have won just one of their last eight matches, picking up just five points out of the last 24 and that victory was only against a Bournemouth, who were pretty ordinary at the time. Their last outing saw them let a 3-1 lead slip against Brighton to draw 3-3, and having conceded nine goals in their last three matches, it is hard to make a case for them moving forward at present. They’ve had 18 days to take stock of things though, so maybe an improvement is just around the corner.
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Team News
Manchester City are expected to have Aymeric Laporte, Benjamin Mendy and John Stones back for this match but they will be without Raheem Sterling who misses out with a hamstring injury. Oleksandr Zinchenko is suspended.
West Ham United could finally give a debut to deadline day signing Jarrod Bowen. He will be under pressure to deliver after the Hammers paid well to acquire him. Felipe Anderson could also be fit to feature but the match comes too soon for Andriy Yarmolenko.
Betting
You would have to be even the most optimistic West Ham United fan to expect the Hammers to get anything out of this match and I’m certainly not one of them. I fully expect Manchester City to win the game, but whether they win it as convincingly as they did on the opening match of the season I’m not so sure. It was 5-0 that afternoon but so much has changed since then, not least the fact that City are out of the title picture.
If the home side had Raheem Sterling in their side here I think things might have resembled that day at the London Stadium, but without him West Ham might find defending a little easier. I’m far from convincing the Hammers will contribute much to the scoring in this match. A damage limitation exercise here and at Anfield on Monday night would look the order of the day for them, especially with their goal difference currently better than the two sides above them. City to win and under 4.5 goals at 5/6 looks a good way to bump up the City to win price.
Tips
WON – Back Man City to win and under 4.5 goals for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Betway
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