Draw of the same from the Hammers
West Ham v Manchester United, Wednesday 7.00pm, BBC1
West Ham served up another score draw at the weekend at home to Arsenal – their tenth of the league campaign – so we decided it was a good idea to have a look at that option again as Manchester United come to Upton Park in their FA Cup replay.
There’s a place in the final four at stake and a trip to Wembley on the horizon, but Slaven Bilic’s men have a habit of drawing this season, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if we were in for a long night on Wednesday.
What’s different on this occasion you could argue is the fact it’s a cup game and the tie will be decided on the night. However, further to the Hammers’ habit of racking up the stalemates in the league this season, they’ve also got some history of going the distance in the cup. Four of their last seven FA Cup replays have gone to at least extra time, most recently when they somehow managed not to exploit Liverpool’s crippling ineptitude in defending set-pieces until the 120th minute.
While Manchester Utd have drawn eight ties this season, a whopping five have been goalless. But fortunately Louis van Gaal’s men have only failed to score three times in their 13 league games in 2016 so the knack for finding the onion bag may well have returned after just two goals in five games during December.
In fact there’s only been one goalless draw in the last 34 clashes between West Ham and the Red Devils, and four of the last nine matches between these two have ended in a score draw. You can probably see where we’re going with this…
It’s that the match ends level after 90 minutes and the two sides prepare for extra time, and while we feel that may be the case, there’s more value in backing the score draw at . It’s a skinny for the sides to draw 1-1, and a tempting that it finishes 2-2. West Ham have already draw 2-2 with Chelsea, Manchester City, Norwich (twice!), Crystal Palace and Sunderland, so it’s not completely out of the question once again.
With a tight encounter expected, it might not be the worst idea to back both sides to win on penalties. It’s for West Ham to go through via a shoot-out and the same price for Louis van Gaal’s side to do the same.