West Ham v Crystal Palace: This punt at 7/2 will do for a Hammers’ home win

What's not to love about Manuel Pellegrini's side in Saturday evening's live game?

West Ham beat Man Utd 2-0 three days before we got paid last month – so I woke up fresh that Sunday morning and looked at the starting line-ups. I thought to myself, what players from this United team would actually get a game for West Ham?

I came to the conclusion that de Gea, Wan-Bissaka and Harry Maguire would be the only starters for West Ham. This is madness and shows the decline that has happened at Old Trafford, but it also shows that West Ham have lots of quality especially in their starting 11.

They also have a manager in Manuel Pellegrini who has a Premier League winning medal and seems to be getting the best out of his players.

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Up front they are really impressive, they brought in Sebastien Haller from Frankfurt in the summer. He got 15 goals last season and has impressed me a lot this season already. They have Felipe Anderson and Andriy Yarmolenko on the wings who have lots of quality and will create lots of chances for the target-man Haller.

Completing that front four is Pablo Fornals who I rate very highly.

His touch is sexy and he has the football brain to sit a bit deeper and dictate the play.

Andriy-Yarmolenko

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Martin O’Neill is an idiot! He had Declan Rice on the bench in a competitive for Ireland, he only had to give him one moment on the pitch to secure him as an Irish player.

Let’s just think about that for a second, Martin O’Neill didn’t think he was good enough to play in an Ireland midfield! He’s now a starter for England, has started this season brilliantly. Rice shares the middle of the park with Mark Noble, who is so consistent. The pair of them give the other four lads licence to go forward.

You’ve probably realised how highly I rate West Ham – and the match odds don’t look right to me. You can currently back the Hammers at evens and you should be all over that!

Their front four will run Crystal Palace ragged. The Eagles will probably go with Jordan Ayew up front and his three goals in his last 26 Premier League games shouldn’t threaten West Ham’s goal too often.

“I could still do a job in that Liverpool front three.”

This is a recent comment from former Liverpool striker Christian Benteke. I am presuming he was in the pub last week with Richard Keogh when he said it, or is he that deluded? Divock Origi has scored more goals against Barcelona in one match than Benteke has scored in the last two seasons at Palace. It looks like he will start from the bench, but this reiterates my point of Palace’s lack of quality going forward.

If you are looking to have a punt on the goalscorer markets I wouldn’t look past Yarmolenko. He was out for a long period with a bad injury, but he’s back as sharp as ever. He’s got three goals in the first six games and is averaging 2.54 shots on goal per game. That pretty impressive if you compare it to someone like Jamie Vardy who is averaging 1.86 shots per 90 mins.

I’ll be having a punt on West Ham at @ evens and will have a small punt on Yarmolenko to score anytime @ 12/5!

*Prices correct at time of publishing and the ‘Barney Rubble’ of West Ham to win & Yarmolenko to score at anytime over the 90 mins pays just short of 7/2. 

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