Liverpool vs West Ham United

BPL 2018-19 – Liverpool vs West Ham United Match Preview

Title contenders Liverpool begin their Barclays Premier League campaign full of hope and they begin the season against a well equipped West Ham side! After playing some of the most exciting football, Liverpool went trophy less last year but after improving on their weaknesses this summer, Liverpool fans believe that this team can finally be good enough to challenge City for the title. Can they get off to a winning start or will Pellegrini’s West Ham stun them on the opening day at Anfield?

Liverpool

Well it’s been a summer full of promise for Liverpool. First of all they had a very good transfer window improving two positions you could have considered as weak in midfield and GK by adding Fabinho, Naby Keita and Allison. All 3 of these players are expected to help Liverpool take the final step and help them win some trophies this season. They’ve also added Shaqiri who will provide depth to an already world class attack and Daniel Sturridge has returned from loan and looked good in pre-season and he’s here for long term it seems and he could definitely be a great impact player for Liverpool. After finishing 4th and losing the UCL final last season, Liverpool were already a really good side and now that they’ve added these top class players you really wouldn’t bet against them to give a good title challenge to Man City. With Salah, Mane and Firmino running riot throughout the whole of last season, it’s safe to say we are all looking forward to seeing them play together for yet another year with a quality midfield behind them. Liverpool had a very solid pre-season too. The first 5 games weren’t really meaning anything due to main players not being back, but the final four games were really where we had a chance to evaluate this Liverpool squad and well they beat City 2-1, United 4-1, destroyed Napoli 5-0 and beat Torino 3-1. Very promising results against good sides. Liverpool will be hoping to bring this form into the new season in the opening match against West Ham who they have had great success destroying recently (last 3 meetings ended in 4-0 4-1 and 4-1 Liverpool wins). New season, high expectations and entertaining football is what we’re going to see from Liverpool.

Looking at team news for the opening game, Liverpool got nearly a full squad back. Only definite absentee is Lovren is and he will most likely either be replaced by one of the youngsters between Joe Gomez or Nathaniel Phillips to slot in alongside van Dijk. Other than that, out of the new comers we can expect all of Allison, Keita and Fabinho to make their debuts in the starting lineup while Shaqiri is expected to be on the bench and to be used as impact sub in case things go wrong. Mane Salah and Firmino are all available. We may see Henderson come off the bench because he hasn’t trained that long yet and Milner has had a long pre-season and is in better form as of now. Expect Liverpool to set up the usual 4-3-3, play high press attacking football and with most players back including the lethal front 3 we should get a very entertaining Liverpool performance with tons of goals as we’ve been used to seeing them do under Klopp.

Wsst Ham

Just like for Liverpool, it’s been a great summer for the Hammers and although the expectations are obviously lower than Liverpool’s, this club can definitely make lots of noise in the Prem. You could argue West Ham have built about as good a squad as any other team below top 6. They’ve added Wilshere, Yarmolenko, Felipe Anderson, Balbuena, C.Sanchez and a few other really good signings while also keeping Arnautovic and Chicarito. Attack wise, we can expect West Ham to be very good. Defensively it may still be a problem as they haven’t added much to improve it other than a solid DM in Carlos Sanchez. West Ham have also hired a really good, proven winning manager in Manuel Pellegrini and out all the additions they’ve made, this may be the best one. West Ham after being just 4 pts off of top 4 in 2016, have had expectations of reaching Europe the past two years but they’ve regressed and somehow got themselves into relegation battle. Maybe the lack of good management and the move into the new stadium have allowed this type of regression to happen but this year there’s something about this team that makes us believe that they can make a run at a 7th place and a UEL spot. A top attacking minded manager with good attacking players around him can definitely make this work. West Ham fans have been nothing but frustrated in the past two years, but maybe just maybe they can finally return to the type of football they played in the 2015-16 season. West Ham have also had a relatively decent pre-season winning 5 out of 7 games although opponents weren’t that good, but still it’s good to come into the season on a high.

Looking at team news, West Ham have a few more absentees than Liverpool. Lanzini is of course out with a long term injury, also Andy Carroll and Winston Reid are both out and Edimilson Fernandes is highly doubtful. Yarmolenko is a question mark but if fit we should expect him to start, alongside other new comers in Wilshere, Fredericks, Fabianski, Diop and Felipe Anderson who are all likely to make their debuts in the starting lineup. Carlos Sanchez will most likely be out because he’s only been signed a few days ago. Main man Arnautovic is also expected to start after having a great pre-season while Chicarito will probably be used as a super sub. It’s really a new squad for West Ham, nearly half the players that are expected to start are new signings so it may take time to gel for this team. We can expect West Ham to be on the back foot of course given the opponent they’re facing but there will be times where they are going to have a go at it, after all Manuel Pellegrini likes his teams to attack and West Ham have far too many talented attackers to not have a go at Liverpool especially given that they will be missing one key defender. It will be key for West Ham to now allow Liverpool to get an early goal because if they get that, it could be a long day for the Hammers. Nobody expects them to win, but they must try and stay competitive with the title contending Liverpool.

What to Expect

Well, we should expect nothing less than a Liverpool win and a goals galore. West Ham are definitely short at the back, missing Winston Reid is crucial and given the attack and midfield that Liverpool have, we should see them put a few past the Hammers. West Ham themselves are definitely capable of scoring and we can expect them to get at least one goal. If you was going to bet on this game, BTTS and over 3.5 goals seems a good bet, you could even go for over 4.5 goals because both of these teams are more than capable of scoring goals. Liverpool will be expected to make a strong start here and we won’t disagree on that. We believe that Liverpool will come out on top against the West Ham side who are still going to have to figure it out because when you bring in that many new players into the starting lineup it tends to take time to work. Liverpool to win 4-1 and all 3 of Mane Firmino and Salah to score is our expectation.

Match Odds (Pinnacle)

Liverpool Win – 1.25

West Ham Win – 13.48

Draw – 6.76

KICK OFF – 12th August 2018 – 1:30pm UK Time