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EPL Odds: Liverpool fight for 1st; Ham fights relegation

Don Aguero

by Don Aguero in News

Updated Jan 17, 2018 · 9:39 AM PST

Liverpool (-300) vs West Ham (+1000), Draw (+515)

West Ham United (3-3-8, 12 points) will travel to Anfield Stadium on Sunday, December 11, to take on Liverpool (9-3-2, 30 points) in the 15th round of the Premier League season. Both teams are recovering from devastating defeats and both are fighting desperately for very different things. Liverpool is fighting for the EPL title; West Ham is fighting just to stay in the league. 

Liverpool’s shocking 4-3 setback against Bournemouth had everyone wondering one thing: what the hell just happened? Liverpool had a firm 3-1 in the 75th minute. They were dominating play, pressing well, defending well — you name it. They were looking like a team that actually stood a chance at winning the Premiership.

Then, in the 76th minute, Bournemouth narrowed the gap to 3-2. Then they closed the gap two minutes later. Then, in the last minute of extra time, Bournemouth scored again and won the game, ending Liverpool’s 15-game unbeaten run. Now, Liverpool sit in third place, four points below leaders Chelsea and one point below Arsenal.

At the other end of the table, West Ham now have the threat of relegation breathing down their neck. For a team that defied expectations last season, finishing seventh, that must be a bitter pill to swallow. They lost to Arsenal last week in a blow-out (5-1), bumping them down to 17th place, three points from the bottom and just one point away from the relegation zone. Their issues have come at both ends of the pitch, failing to muster much of an attack while surrendering goals at an alarming rate (15 goals-for, 29 goals-against).

West Ham’s primary goalscorer, Michail Antonio, has scored six of West Ham’s 15 goals this season. Dimitri Payet leads the assists with five; he and Antonio make up the full extent of the Ham attack. Andy Carroll has been lackluster this season and striker Diafra Sakho has only managed to score one goal.

Liverpool have no problems scoring goals, it’s their defense they need to worry about (18 goals-against). You need to go down to ninth-place Stoke City before finding a team that has conceded more often.

Despite Liverpool’s defensive holes, West Ham have not won a game in six matches, and until last weekend, Liverpool had not lost a game in fifteen. It’s hard to back a team like West Ham right now, even at those long odds. 

Pick: Liverpool (-300)


Photo credit: “West Ham Vs Birkrikara” by Joshjdds, CC BY-SA 2.0 [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0], via Flickr.

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