West Ham United host Sunderland in the Premier League this weekend.
Sky Sports pundit Paul Merson is predicting a season first for one of West Ham United or Sunderland when the struggling pair lock horns at the London Stadium on Saturday.
Sunderland remain rooted to the bottom of the Premier League and without a win heading into the game, with West Ham buoyed by last week’s victory at Crystal Palace.
The pair’s contrasting results – Sunderland were 2-0 losers at Stoke City – saw Mackems boss David Moyes replace West Ham counterpart Slaven Bilic as favourite to become the division’s next sack victim.
According to Merson, the Scot’s situation is about to get even more bleak.
“Sunderland are struggling, and West Ham had a really good result at Palace and played superbly in the first half,” writes the former Arsenal playmaker in his weekly predictions column for Sky Sports.
“I can’t see anything different here. It’s the perfect game for them to get back-to-back wins for the first time this season, with Sunderland bottom of the league without winning a game. But West Ham have to get through the first 20 minutes positively.
“Sunderland have had a lot of injuries to be fair, you’ve got to feel sorry for them, they haven’t had a lot of luck so far.”
West Ham finished seventh last season, but a run of four straight league defeats left them inside the bottom three until last weekend.
In contrast, Sunderland survived in their penultimate fixture of 2015-16, but had manager Sam Allardyce poached by England for what proved to be an ill-fated spell in charge.
Not even a win would lift Moyes’ side out of the relegation places this weekend.
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