Sports Blog 14/09/2015: Match Preview – West Ham vs Newcastle, Monday 14th September 2015

It’s a battle of two of the bigger Premier League managerial appointments this Monday evening, as Slaven Bilic’s West Ham host Steve McClaren’s Newcastle at 8pm on Sky Sports 1.

The Hammers have been the better side in the nascent season, even if they have been comically inconsistent in their performances. Impressive away wins over Arsenal and Liverpool, with 5 goals scored and 2 clean sheets, have bookended 2 homes losses, 2-1 to Leicester and 4-3 to Bournemouth. That leaves them with 6 points from 4 games and a plum place at the middle of the table; however, those wins against ostensibly bigger opposition suggest plenty of positive changes made by Bilic despite some kinks that still need to be worked out. One such issue is discipline; out of their 4 games, West Ham have had a player sent off in 3 of them, effectively gifting Bournemouth the win in their 3rd match, and something that will need to improve if they are to build on their early promise.



Bilic was also very busy on the final day of the transfer window, taking Victor Moses and Alex Song on loan, from Chelsea and Barcelona respectively, as well as signing Nikica Jelavic from Hull and Michail Antonio from Nottingham Forrest. Whilst Song is injured, both Moses and Jelavic could appear against the Toon, joining the already fairly successful signings of Dimitri Payet, who nabbed West Ham’s loan goal against Leicester and is at 15/2 to score first, and Manuel Lanzini, with the young Argentinian grabbing the opener at Anfield and at a Super Mega PGM spread of 15-19. Andy Carroll could also make his return against his first club after being injured since February.

Steve McClaren was just as happy to spend this summer as Bilic was, splashing around £50 million on Ivan Toney, Florian Thauvin, Chancel Mbemba, Aleksandar Mitrovic and Georginio Wijnaldum. Yet despite all of them bar Mbemba arguably being attack-minded players, Newcastle have struggled in front of goal. Their opening game against Southampton saw the Toon’s only 2 goals so far, with Papiss Cisse (at a Super Mega PGM of 22-27) and Wijnaldum (scoring on his league debut and at 10/1 to get the first goal on Monday) helping Newcastle to a 2-2 draw. Since then, however, Newcastle lost 2-0 to Swansea, drew 0-0 against Man United and failed to get a single shot on target in their 1-0 defeat to Arsenal.



Like West Ham, Newcastle also have their own discipline problem. Despite looking dangerous in front of goal, new signing Mitrovic has been more memorable for seeing 2 yellows in his first 2 games, before being sent off within 16 minutes against United. This joins Daryl Janmaat’s dismissal against Swansea, and brings Newcastle’s total cards for their first 4 games to a pretty shocking 14. In anticipation of a fiery game, then, our traders are offering a Bookings spread of 44-48, where 10 points are awarded for a yellow, 25 points for a red, with each player allowed a maximum of 35 points.

Despite some issues leading to 2 frustrating losses, West Ham showed a genuine spark against both Arsenal and Liverpool. In comparison Newcastle haven’t jelled quite as quickly under McClaren as West Ham have under Bilic, leading our traders to fancy a first home win of the season for the Hammers, at a West Ham/Newcastle Goal Supremacy spread of 0.35-0.55 alongside a Total Goals spread of 2.55-2.75.