West Ham vs Brentford Prediction

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West Ham vs Brentford Prediction Match Overview

The two teams meet for their second Premier League fixtures since the recommencement. West Ham have lost their last four Premier League matches and find themselves occupying 16th place, one point above 18th and 19th-placed teams Wolves and Nottingham Forest, and two points clear of bottom-dwellers Southampton. Frankly, this was not the start to the season that Moyes and his men would have envisaged, having qualified for European football in consecutive seasons (6th 20/21, 7th 21/22). They have now lost 10 of their first 16 games and are averaging comfortably less than a goal per game. While their home form is somewhat better, two damaging home defeats at the hands of Crystal Palace and Leicester City mean that this isn’t something they can take great comfort from either. This is a must-win encounter for the Hammers to get their domestic season back on track.

Perhaps surprisingly to some due to Brentford’s impressive performances this season, they’ve also only won four Premier League matches, although they have only lost four matches too, which ensures they’re well positioned in 10th place. They had a fast start to the season, including a famous 4-0 victory over Manchester United, however, they endured a poor run of form until relatively recently. Now Frank’s men are aiming for a five-match undefeated streak on the back of draws against Wolves, Nottingham Forest and Tottenham and a shock 2-1 away victory over Manchester City which was in no way fortunate. A draw would enable Brentford to consolidate their mid-table position, whereas a win would see them move above 9th place Fulham, albeit perhaps temporarily.

West Ham vs Brentford Team News

Injuries and Suspensions

Might Not Play: Aguerd, Cornet, Scamacca (West Ham); Onyeka (Brentford)

Zouma, Cornet (West Ham); Ajer, Baptiste, Hickey, Strakosha (Brentford)

Possible Lineups

West Ham (4-2-3-1): Lukasz Fabianski; Aaron Cresswell, Craig Dawson, Thilo Kehrer, Vladimir Coufal; Declan Rice, Tomas Soucek; Said Benrahma, Lucas Paqueta, Jarrod Bowen; Michail Antonio

Brentford (3-5-2): David Raya; Rico Henry, Ethan Pinnock, Ben Mee, Zanka, Mads Roerslev; Christian Norgaard, Vitaly Janelt, Mathias Jensen; Bryan Mbeumo, Ivan Toney

West Ham vs Brentford Prediction Analysis

Playing Through Brentford’s Press

There’s no doubt about it, Brentford are a difficult proposition to play out from the back against. They will be looking to press aggressively from the first whistle in the hopes of forcing West Ham’s defensive players into costly mistakes which allows them to flood forward and create numerical advantages in the final third. If Brentford are successful in doing this, we’ve seen several times this season already that they are capable of building a lead in this fashion, most notably against Manchester United and Tottenham. West Ham have struggled for goals this season, averaging fewer than a goal per game in the league and only 10 goals from open play in 16 matches. Some may argue that this is as a result of a condensed fixture schedule, and West Ham’s involvement in European football with a relatively small squad, when compared with the giants of the PL, means that fatigue is a factor, but that’s conjecture.

West Ham’s Travails in Front of Goal

So how does this tie in with Brentford’s tendency and ability to aggressively press from the first whistle? It means that West Ham cannot afford to make mistakes playing the ball out from the back early on. The Hammers have simply not shown thus far that they can claw back a two-goal deficit which has been a feature of Brentford’s exploits several times already this season. Perhaps this will necessitate a more direct approach from West Ham, which in turn puts pressure upon their defence to distribute the ball accurately downfield – lumping the ball forward will play into Brentford’s hands because they play with three central defenders and they’re all aerially capable. Teams which lump the ball into the box against Brentford, either from deep or from wide areas, don’t have much success using this tactic.

A Difficult Stylistic Matchup for West Ham

It’s perhaps instructive that West Ham lost both of these fixtures last season – 2-1 at home and 2-0 away. While not trying to sound overly negative, West Ham aren’t known for their impressive ball retention this season and they give away the ball far too often. They’re also 16th in big chances missed with 16. This indicates that as strange as it may sound, it’s not that their forwards aren’t finishing chances that accounts for their low goal tally – it’s that they aren’t creating enough in the first place. Brentford are difficult to open up unless you can move the ball quickly and with purpose and too often this season West Ham haven’t done that.

Beat the Bookmaker West Ham vs Brentford Prediction

We predict that Brentford will get the three points this time around, which they arguably deserved at home to Spurs. Brentford are third in missed big chances, behind only Manchester City and Liverpool and slightly ahead of Manchester United and Newcastle. Normally this might be seen as something of a negative statistic but Brentford are starting to fire now while maintaining the same level of chance creation, and results have borne that fact out. Going against the grain somewhat, a relatively comfortable victory for Brentford could be on the cards here.

West Ham 0-2 Brentford

Beat the Bookmaker West Ham vs Brentford Prediction – Brentford to Win Odds: