WEST Ham take on Newcastle in the Monday night game this week. What does Chris Graham (@chrisgraham79) make of it?
West Ham v Newcastle | Monday 20:00 | Sky Sports 1
It's West Ham that fascinate me here and dominate my thinking. Firstly the signings they brought in on deadline day drove a dagger through the heart of those of us that have backed them to go down. Well hello there.
Alex Song, Victor Moses, Michail Antonio and Nikica Jelavic were recruited and all four look useful recruits. The latter three are available for this match on Monday.
Another point to ruminate over is just what West Ham will turn up here? Will it be the slick, impressive outfit that won at the Emirates and Anfield with comparative ease or will it be the hopeless, ragged, ill-disciplined collective that lost to Bournemouth and Leicester?
Those two poor performances mentioned both occurred at Upton Park and the pressure of it being the final season at the old ground may be having an effect over the club.
For Newcastle it's been small steps forward and small steps back. A draw at Old Trafford has been their highlight alongside a fiery 2-2 draw with Southampton on opening weekend.
The negatives have been their 2-0 loss to Swansea and just a lack of attacking verve overall. To be fair circumstances have prevented them from opening their shoulders but they offered little against Manchester United (away at Old Trafford) and Arsenal (played with 10 men for most of the game).
On Monday, perhaps for the first time in over a month in the league we'll be hoping for some attacking flair from Steve McClaren's side. The absence of Aleksandar Mitrovic (through suspension naturally) won't help them there though.
Because West Ham are such a schizophrenic side it's hard to have a strong view on the Win-Draw-Win market (especially when they're as short as 11/10 in places) so I find myself looking elsewhere.
One things for sure, West Ham are scoring goals. Nine already this campaign in just four games and if you throw their embarrassing European campaign into the equation it's nine games out of 10 that they've notched.
I just get the feeling they might put on a show on Monday. Under the lights at Upton Park with the new signings gleaming in the East London air as they take on a side yet to find it's feet this season.
I'm not convinced by Newcastle this season so far, but I could be being harsh so I'm going to remove them from the equation here and just focus on West Ham.
At 11/10 with William Hill I'll back them to score Over 1.5 Goals in this match on Monday. As I said earlier they have been prolific in front of goal this season and this bet would have paid out in three of their four league matches this season. They're due a strong home performance and it might come here.
Best Bets
West Ham v Newcastle – West Ham to score Over 1.5 Goals (11/10 William Hill)
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