Manchester City vs West Ham Predictions & Betting Tips, Match Previews

Pep Guardiola’s long awaited reign of Manchester City didn’t begin with the sort of gusto that many expected of them. They had a disappointing pre-season as they failed to win a single game, losing to Bayern Munich and Arsenal and drawing against Borussia Dortmund.

They followed this with their Premier League opener against Sunderland, with the optimistic Manchester City fans expecting a landslide victory. This wasn’t to be though as Sunderland defended resolutely, cancelling out Sergio Aguero’s opener through Jermain Defoe. Unfortunately for Sunderland debutant defender Paddy McNair came on and scored an own goal to lose them a point, ironically in his first match since leaving Manchester United.

This wasn’t the beginning to life under Guardiola that Manchester City fans had hoped for, but in midweek he showed his talents in Europe with a 5-0 demolition of Steaua Bucharest away from home. Aguero missed two penalties before scoring a hat trick in one of the strangest individual performances in memory. They followed this with a 4-1 hammering of Stoke, with Aguero adding another two to his tally.

Manchester City’s 2nd leg tie with Steaua Bucharest on Wednesday was less of an eventful game, with the tie all but over and Guardiola opting for a weakened squad. They won the game 1-0, but the main talking point was Joe Hart’s involvement, and the recent arrival of Claudio Bravo means that that was probably his final appearance at the Etihad.

West Ham enjoyed a very successful season last term as they qualified for the Europa League again and maintained a challenge for the top four throughout most of the season. It hasn’t gone to plan for them so far this season though.

They lost their Premier League opener at Chelsea thanks to a late Diego Costa goal and followed it with a 1-1 draw at Astra in their Europa League playoff tie. Meanwhile, new £24 million signing Andre Ayew was ruled out for months on his debut and an injury crisis broke out that has seen Sofiane Feghouli and Manuel Lanzini, among others, ruled out until September.

West Ham managed a less than impressive 1-0 win in their first ever Premier League match at the Olympic Stadium, with a late header coming from Michael Antonio to settle the scores. Midweek saw them knocked out of the Europa League for the second year running by Astra though. The 11th placed Romanian side in a financial crisis came to the Olympic Stadium and beat them 1-0, so West Ham’s new fortress isn’t looking quite so great at the moment.

Manchester City have looked very impressive in their last two big games against Steaua Bucharest and Stoke. Their performance in midweek wasn’t really representative of their qualities due to the weakened side, and the fact that they’ve had an extra few days rest for the first team will give them an even greater edge over the poor West Ham.

I’m expecting a comfortable win for the hosts judging on West Ham’s midweek performance, so odds of 1.750 for a Manchester City -1.5 Asian Handicap Win look decent value for money. I’m going for a 3-0 correct score prediction at 15/2 as well.