West Ham take on Manchester City on Sunday.
West Ham manager Slaven Bilic before the game
Last season West Ham secured a memorable win at the Etihad, surprising the hosts with a 2-1 victory.
One goalscorer that day, Victor Moses, is no longer at the club, while Diafra Sakho who netted the other, is not expected to be involved.
Manchester City appear to have improved under Pep Guardiola and are scoring for fun, and the Hammers will be hard pressed to repeat the feat.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola during training
Pundit Paul Merson is backing a Manchester City win, and is not even expecting West Ham to score – calling a 2-0 win for the hosts.
Speaking to SkySports, he explained that he feels last night’s Europa League game will have taken too much out of the Hammers.
He said: “West Ham fell over the line in their first league game at home and City haven’t really done anything wrong yet. They won well at Stoke and I think they will be a bit more efficient this season.
“West Ham have a tricky game on Thursday which could take a bit out of them. Also, you can’t work on team shape as much with a Thursday game so they won’t have as much time to prepare as City.”
Paul Merson
Merson correctly backed West Ham to beat Bournemouth last week, but missed on his call that City would draw 1-1 at Stoke, with Guardiola’s side instead running out 4-1 winners.
As far as West Ham are concerned, nobody gave them a hope of winning at the Etihad last season, so little has changed in that regard, yet this time they have the added confidence of having done it a year earlier.
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