West Ham vs Astra predictions, betting tips & match preview

West Ham’s 7th place finish in the Premier League last season earned them a place in the 3rd round of qualifying for the Europa League, where they faced Slovenian side Domzale. They lost 2-1 away from home but comfortably won 3-0 in the home leg. After drawing the away leg of this fixture, they will be expecting to comfortably win the home leg in similar fashion to last round.

Astra reached the play-off round of the Europa League by losing in the 3rd round of Champions League qualifying to Danish side FC Copenhagen. They drew 1-1 at home, before losing 3-0 in the away leg. Their poor away form will likely cost them in this fixture as well.

West Ham haven’t had the greatest start to the season, they were unlucky to lose 2-1 to Chelsea away from home on the opening day, having conceded an 89th minute goal due to a Diego Costa strike when he arguably shouldn’t have even still been on the field. They then scraped a 1-0 win at home against Bournemouth with a goal that only came after Harry Arter was red carded for the visitors.

Astra’s poor start to the season got even worse at the weekend, losing 5-1 away from home against CFR Cluj. This leaves them with 4 points from 5 games (W1, D1, L3) and with almost no confidence going into this leg.

West Ham’s incredible home record should prove too much for Astra, who’s diabolical away record won’t do them any favours. They’ve only lost once in their last 18 home league games and Astra haven’t won away from home since the end of last season.

We see West Ham taking the game by a comfortable margin, so we’re going with a bet of West Ham -1.5 Asian Handicap at 2.100 and a correct score of 3-0 to West Ham.