Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City side travel south to the capital to take on Slaven Bilic’s West Ham United. West Ham will look to beat the visitors and extend their recent good run of form in the Premier League but Man City are certainly no pushover. This season they haven’t performed to their usually very high standard and they’re only sitting in 5h place, not even currently in the Champions League positions. West Ham are on the rise and they are sitting in 10^th.

STATS

• Since the transfer saga concerning Dmitri Payet properly begun on the 10^th of January, West Ham have managed to pick up 2 wins from their last 2 matches in the league. They have picked up all 3 points in 5 of their last 7 games, with 2 defeats coming against the champions, Leicester City, and Manchester United.
• Manchester City haven’t shown a strong run of good results in the league since right at the beginning of the season where they won their first 6 consecutive games. They have only won 1 of their last 4 and Guardiola is showing his frustration at his side’s lack of recent form with very fiery press conferences and an air of arrogance that he isn’t known for.
• Michail Antonio has been in blistering so far this season from the right wing and has enjoyed his best goal scoring season for West Ham, with 8 goals already. He’s earnt himself a bit of a record for scoring headers and has scored more than any other player in Europe’s top 5 leagues since the start of the season. And Carroll has been on the score board in recent weeks since his return from injury and has 5 this season.
• It’s no surprise that Sergio Aguero has been Man City’s most prolific in front of goal this season with 11 goals, but he’ll be disappointed that he is currently 4 goals behind Diego Costa and Alexis Sanchez in the race for the Golden Boot.

HEAD TO HEAD

Man City’s recent record against West Ham has been good as they have won 8 of the last 11 league fixtures between the two sides. But they have won just 3 of the last 6, a stat that will bring confidence to West Ham fans.

WEST HAM STATS

After 2 emphatic victories in their last 2 games, Bilic won’t look to make too many changes to his side, but new signing, Robert Snodgrass, might make his first appearance for the London club. The £10 million man was brought in to replace the outgoing Dmitri Payet. Andre Ayew is still away at the African Cup of Nations with Ghana but Cheikhou Kouyate may return after Senegal were knocked out. Angleo Ogbonna needs a knee operation so won’t be back for a while and he joins Diafra Sakho and Arthur Masuaku on the injury table in the last two months.

Latest matches: West Ham United

21.01.2017	Prem	Middlesbrough FC	West Ham United	1:3	W
14.01.2017	Prem	West Ham United	Crystal Palace	3:0	W

MANCHESTER CITY NEWS

Pep Guardiola will possibly look to make some changes to his side after some disappointing results recently. The one big change he might make is to bring Aguero back into the team as he is a doubt after returning from his injury. Ilkay Gundogan is the only other unavailability and he won’t be back until next season at the earliest with a nasty ACL tear.

Latest matches: Manchester City

28.01.2017	FA C	Crystal Palace	Manchester City	0:3	W
21.01.2017	Prem	Manchester City	Tottenham Hotspur	2:2	D
15.01.2017	Prem	Everton FC	Manchester City	4:0	L
06.01.2017	FA C	West Ham United	Manchester City	0:5	W
02.01.2017	Prem	Manchester City	Burnley FC	2:1	W

SUMMARY

With the quality that Pep Guardiola has at his disposal, Man City should definitely take all 3 points from London, however with West Ham’s last couple of results as well as home advantage, they won’t be easily defeated by the Manchester side. Both teams will look to attack and this one should see plenty of goals.