The midweek action in the Premier League concludes with the one remaining match which comes along from Old Trafford on Thursday night when Manchester United look for successive victories when they play host to West Ham United.
Results so far this week have dropped United to ninth in the table but they will move up to fifth with a win while West Ham have fallen into the bottom three in this round of matches and need a win here to get their heads back above water.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Premier League channels with the lengthy build-up beginning at 7pm with kick off at Old Trafford coming at 8pm.
Manchester United
There has been a lot of noise around Manchester United this season but it looked like they were beginning to get their act together recently. They certainly were at home having won four on the bounce at Old Trafford and when Everton were reduced to 10 men inside 15 minutes of their last match here, the United faithful could have been forgiven for thinking that another win was coming their way. That wasn’t how it played out though, but to be fair to the Red Devils, they bounced back from that disappointing loss to the Toffees by becoming the first team to win at Crystal Palace this season on Sunday.
Now they will be looking to get back to winning ways in front of their own fans so that they can put that Everton defeat firmly behind them and if they are able to do that then they would sit in the top five in the Premier League table as we head into the busy part of the campaign. Ruben Amorim will know his side need to keep picking up points because they are about to lose key players to the Africa Cup of Nations and need to take advantage while those options are still available to him.
West Ham United
It isn’t just Manchester United that looked to have turned the corner only to be rocked by a rough result, West Ham United have a similar profile. They had won two and drawn another prior to their defeat at home to Liverpool at the weekend and while they probably wouldn’t have been expected to win that match a month ago, the way Liverpool have been playing it is fair to say that the Hammers would have been expected to offer up a sterner challenge than they actually did.
While the Hammers had shown improved results under Nuno, he still hasn’t been able to sort out their defensive issues and as such West Ham make the trip to Old Trafford having conceded multiple goals in six of their last seven matches. That needs fixing if the Hammers are to avoid a nervy second half of the season, especially with results in this midweek set of games not going their way so far. For now though he might need to fight fire with fire.
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Team News
Manchester United are set to have Matheus Cunha back from injury but he might not be ready to start the game. They are without Benjamin Sesko and Harry Maguire once again so Joshua Zirkzee is expected to lead the line once more.
West Ham United will be without their playmaker Lucas Paqueta who is suspended after his daft sending off at the weekend. Tomas Soucek is the man most likely to replace the Brazilian in what could be an otherwise unchanged side.
Betting
I wouldn’t like to favour either of these sides when it comes to carrying my money. Just when it looked like Manchester United were turning a corner the Everton game came along and I can’t get that out of my head but while results have improved under Nuno, West Ham still look a mess when it comes to defending so I’m going to leave the match betting firmly alone and look elsewhere for a bet on this particular match. That comes in a player prop bet.
The one I like is for Casemiro to have a shot on target. He had two in the only meeting he was a part of against West Ham last season which bodes well and he had two more in the win at Crystal Palace on Sunday. Palace defend dead balls much better than West Ham do and United are very potent on them so that is another positive in terms of the Brazilian hitting the target here. In total, he has had a shot on target in three of his last five matches and had two shots against Everton which didn’t test the keeper so the midfielder is a danger going forward and in a match the Red Devils are expected to dominate, the Brazilian to have a shot on target looks good to me.
Tips
Back Casemiro – Over 0.5 shots on target for a 3/10 stake at 2.20 with Bet365
