Arsenal are hoping to record a third consecutive Premier League victory when they host West Ham at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday for a London derby. The reverse fixture was played in December and Arsenal won it 3-1 with goals from Gabriel Martinelli, Nicolas Pepe and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang after Angelo Ogbonna had opened the scoring for West Ham. Overall, Arsenal have won four of the last six direct matches in all competitions, while the Hammers won just one.
Arsenal seem to have recovered well from the shock Europa League exit, last week they lost 2-1 at home against Olympiacos to crash out of the continental competitions but this week the Gunners defeated Portsmouth 2-0 to advance to the quarter-finals of the FA Cup. Arsenal have won four of their last five matches in all competitions and their last two Premier League matches, and lost just one of their last 12 matches in all competitions. The Gunners are tenth in the Premier League table, but fifth-placed Manchester United are just five points ahead. Calum Chambers, Kieran Tierney, Cedric Soares, Lucas Torreira and Sead Kolasinac are all injured and won't be in the squad for this match.
West Ham have finally ended an eight-game winless streak last weekend when they managed to defeat West Ham 3-1. That result pulled them out of the relegation zone for now, but they are tied on 27 points with Watford and 18th-placed Bournemouth, so another defeat could send them straight back into the bottom three. The Hammers did have quite a difficult league schedule ahead of last weekend's match, they met Liverpool twice and Manchester City as well during the past month, and lost all those matches. Tomas Soucek, Jack Wilshere, Andriy Yarmolenko and Ryan Fredericks are injured for the visitors.
Probable line-ups:
Arsenal: Leno - Bellerin, Mustafi, Luiz, Saka - Ceballos, Xhaka - Pepe, Ozil, Aubameyang - Nketiah
West Ham: Fabianski - Ngakia, Diop, Ogbonna, Cresswell - Noble, Rice - Bowen, Fornals, Antonio - Haller
My prediction:
Arsenal's setback against Olympiacos looks like just an accident if you consider their results over the past couple of months, I think the Gunners will win 3-1.
Here are the odds for the match at NetBet:
Arsenal win - 1.57
Draw - 4.33
West Ham win - 6.00
