West Ham v Burnley Match Preview

West Ham v Burnley Match Preview
Venue: The London Stadium, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London E20 2ST.
Kick Off- 14.00 Sunday 10 March 2024.

The Clarets face a second successive Sunday fixture as they travel south to take on West Ham at the London Stadium. A 0-2 home defeat by Bournemouth last weekend has all but consigned the Clarets to an immediate return to the Championship.

The Hammers in contrast currently lie seventh in the Premier League table and are well placed to qualify yet again for European competition. A poor run of results in January and at the beginning of February including a 0-6 humbling home defeat by Arsenal had put some pressure on manager David Moyes. His side however have bounced back with two straight wins first at home to Brentford and then at Everton. Jarrod Bowen who is pushing strongly for selection in England’s squad for the European Championships netted a match winning hat trick against the Bees while goalkeeper Alphonse Areola was instrumental in the Hammers victory at Goodison Park with a string of fine saves including keeping out a penalty kick.

West Ham travel to Freiburg on Thursday evening for a last 16 Europa League tie as they look to claim another European trophy, having won the Europa Conference League last year. Burnley’s own participation in the Europa League in 2018-19 now seems a very distant memory in what has been a very disappointing season.Burnley put in an improved performance against Bournemouth but their season long failings at both ends of the pitch were still evident. An inability to convert scoring opportunities into goals coupled with a brittle defence suggests the Clarets will return empty-handed from their latest capital encounter.

I like West Ham, don't know why but I always enjoy watching them. Paqueta can be an absolute joy to watch, while Zouma cracks me up, he's so clumsy and ungainly he looks D1 at best to me, but he continues to survive at the top level, maybe it's just that it's a long way to run round him. Moyes is an enigma, it seems he's going to get sacked every month, then they go on a run and he's safe for another month. They've lost Declan Rice, and they have somehow to cope with the Europa League, which has ruined many bigger clubs that the Hammer's season, and yet there they are 7th in the PL, above Newcastle, one place behind United. I don't know how they do it, but good luck to them.