Expect goals at the London Stadium
The jury is out on big-spending West Ham already after they took a beating at Anfield on the opening weekend. Will they be able to bounce back?
West Ham
The club’s owners will be expecting some return on their significant investment this summer and will demand an improvement on last season’s disappointing 13th place. The question is, can the team succeed?
Well, on paper it looks pretty good. They managed to bring in a hard and experienced manager in Pellegrini and they’ve kept hold of ‘the beast', aka Arnautovic. Meanwhile, Fabianski is the new man between the posts, names such as Balbuena and Diop have been added to the defence, with Yarmolenko and Felipe Anderson the new boys further forward. Overall, the performance of the new-look side against Liverpool left a lot to be desired.
The general feeling is Pellegrini needs time to mould these players into a team.
In the case of the upcoming fixture, Bournemouth will certainly cause the home side problems, especially given West Ham’s defence at present. I find it hard to believe The Hammers won’t do the same to Bournemouth though, considering the attacking players at their disposal. Lanzini, Carroll and Reid remain out for the hosts.
Bournemouth
I must say, I do like Bournemouth’s style of football. Their attacking philosophy means Eddie Howe's side are frequently involved in entertaining affairs that tend to be end-to-end throughout. This wasn’t the case last weekend however when The Cherries run out more than comfortable 2-0 victors against a very weak opponent in newcomers, Cardiff. But it’s hard not to forget last season’s remarkable run which saw Bournemouth, in 16 of their last 18 fixtures, score and concede at least once.
This year, the team has undergone little surgery with the Norwegian King and Wilson, who enjoyed a mini renaissance in the spring and showed his finishing ability last weekend too, still the 'go-to guys' for goals. It’s highly likely this trend will come to the fore once more, against a West Ham side still getting used to each other. The visitors are still without Stanislas and new signing Diego Rico.
West Ham - Bournemouth Betting Tip
West Ham boast a stellar attack but a muddled defence will almost certainly let Bournemouth in, at least once. It’s a bet on both teams to score at 1.75 with Betfair all day long for me.
