Contending squad West Ham United is set to clash with struggling defending champions Chelsea on Saturday at the Boleyn Ground for a 2015-2016 Premier League season match. West Ham had been unbeaten since their 3-4 defeat to Bournemouth in week 3 of the competitions.
Bilic has received more than two solid performances from West Ham (5-2-2), who are unexpectedly fourth in the table after finishing 12th last season.
Their improvement includes stunning road victories at Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City.
They got another victory away from home last weekend, after drawing their week 7 and 8 matches, when Manuel Lanzini scored in the 88th minute before Dimitri Payet added another in stoppage time of a 3-1 victory at Crystal Palace.
Following a terrible start on all fronts, Chelsea are 11th in the table and find themselves six points off the top four coming into this fixture and with a chance to string together back-to-back wins in the league for the first time since the start of May.
They haven’t kept consecutive clean sheets in the league since mid April and they will attempt to record the feat against a West Ham side that are averaging more than two goals a game in the league thus far.
The Blues was able to find some life in their current disappointing season as they outpointed bottom-dweller Aston Villa, 2-0, at the Stamford Bridge also last Saturday.
A first half strike by forward Diego Costa followed by an own goal by Villa defender Alan Hutton at the 54th minute shoved Chelsea to only their second win in six matches.
Match facts
- Chelsea have kept a clean sheet in their last 5 matches against West Ham in all competitions.
- West Ham are fourth in the Premier League table with 17 points and 5 won matches
- Chelsea are 11th in the Premier League table with 11 points as they won only 3 matches so far
- West Ham are undefeated in their last 6 matches in the Premier League.
- Chelsea hold a 14-3-1 advantage in their last 18 matches with West Ham, outscoring them 21-7 while going 7-1-1 at Upton Park.
- West Ham forward Dimitri Payet has created more chances than any other player in Europe so far this season.
- Payet is one of the best forwards in Premier League this season as he scored 5 goals in 9 matches so far
Head to head
In last six matches they played together, Chelsea won 4 times, West Ham won once and one match ended draw.
Last match they played against each other was on March 4th 2015 when Chelsea won 1-0 away.
Team news
West Ham United will be without defender Winston Reid for the visit of Chelsea on Saturday as he missed last week’s 3-1 victory over Crystal Palace with a hip problem and has not recovered in time with James Collins likely to come into replace him.
Victor Moses meanwhile is ineligible to play against his parent club due to the terms in his loan agreement.
Meanwhile, Branislav Ivanovic is expected to be absent for the short trip across London to West Ham at the weekend.
Abdul Baba Rahman could well start at left back. Pedro is also injured, so Hazard and Willian will start, and Oscar will probably join them behind Diego Costa. Naturally, Asmir Begovic will be in goal, with Thibaut Courtois still recovering from surgery.
Due to great performance with two clean sheets in a row, John Terry will retain his spot at Chelsea’s defence with Kurt Zouma likely to stay at right-back.
Predicted Line-ups
West Ham : Adrián; Tomkins, Cresswell, Jenkinson, Collins; Moses, Kouyaté; Lanzini, Noble, Payet; Sakho
Chelsea : Begovic; Rahman, Terry, Azpilicueta, Zouma; Loftus-Cheek, Fàbregas; Willian, Hazard, Remy; Costa.
From : SS.com
