Goal-laden London derby?
West Ham United host Brentford on Friday evening in aiming to pull away from the relegation picture in the Premier League.
The Hammers have seemed to prioritise Europa Conference League action at times this term, but David Moyes has a nice block now where the East Londoners can focus on climbing the table.
West Ham have been better than their 16th league position suggests this term, but defensive issues have been creeping, with Arsenal exploiting those to beat them 3-1, despite trailing at half time, on Boxing Day.
The Bees came very close to beating Tottenham Hotspur but were pegged back to a 2-2 draw, plenty of positives to take into their trip to the London Stadium.
Process
The Hammers have unsustainably underperformed to score just 13 goals from 23.3 expected goals (xG) for this season, suggesting that they will begin to find the net more freely, if they can continue to create chances at such a rate.
Maxwel Cornet, Kurt Zouma, Naif Aguerd and Gianluca Scamacca are likely to miss out, with the latter having the best chance of recovering to feature.
Aaron Hickey, Kristoffer Ajer, Shandon Baptiste and Thomas Strakosha are sidelined for the Bees, and it will be interesting to see what kind of feel the match takes with it being a London derby.
Brentford have been impressive going forward this season, Bryan Mbeumo and Ivan Toney have gone up a level once again and they pose a potent attacking threat.
The Bees have scored 25 goals from 16 outings, creating chances at an average of 1.75 xGF per game, a comfortably stronger attacking process than that of the hosts.
Defensively, they are not as strong, and the uncomplicated styles of play deployed by both managers may lead this match to be quite open, especially with the Hammers desperate for the three points.
Goals?
Often fixture congestion can decrease the likelihood of goal-heavy games, however, I do not feel that that will have too much sway on how this one pans out.
West Ham have scored in seven of ten.
West Ham have conceded in seven of ten.
West Ham have seen both teams score in four of ten.
West Ham have seen over 2.5 goals in four of ten.
Brentford have scored in seven of ten.
Brentford have conceded in seven of ten.
Brentford have seen both teams score in six of ten.
Brentford have seen over 2.5 goals in five of ten.
Post bet chat Marcus's Tips:
2-0 Brentford, Moyes under pressure.