Can West Ham claw out of the relegation zone with a win over Everton, at 8pm on BT Sport 1?

This season’s been a bit of a disaster for the Hammers, not only due to the fact they’re facing a fight to stay in the top flight just one year after moving to a massive new stadium, but because they’ve been forced to appointment David Moyes as manager after giving the boot to Slaven Bilic.

Since the former Sunderland, Manchester United and, of course, Everton manager took over there’s been scant sign of a turnaround. His first match in charge was a routine 2-0 loss to Watford, while on Friday they came from behind to nab a 1-1 drawn against Leicester (admittedly not too bad given Leicester beat Tottenham 2-1 on Tuesday).



To be fair to Moyes, it’s hard to know where to start in fixing West Ham. They have the joint second-worst defence in the league – only trailing Everton for that dubious honour – and, without the injured Javier Hernandez, have no real attacking threat to speak of. It says it all that Diafra Sakho, who has one goal in league, and Andy Carroll, who doesn’t even have that, are the club’s best hopes up front, with both forwards at Super Mega PGM spreads of 18-22.

Not that Everton are in better shape. With the club taking more than a month to come up with an astonishingly bog standard choice for their new manager – Big Sam is greasing up for another relegation scrap as we speak – the Toffees have endured a right old time of it under caretaker Dave Unsworth.

Since Ronald Koeman was told to do one Everton have been kicked out of the EFL Cup by Chelsea; lost 3-0 to Lyon and 5-1 to Atalanta in the Europa League; and, in the Premier League, suffered a 2-0 defeat to Leicester, had to twice come from behind against bottom of the table Crystal Palace to secure a 2-2 draw, and most recently were thrashed 4-1 by Southampton. The sole bright spot has been a 3-2 victory over Watford, and even that required a 91st minute penalty (and a missed spot-kick from Tom Cleverly 10 minutes later).

While they’ve only scored 13 goals to West Ham’s 12, Everton have a few more options up front than their similarly troubled opponents, even if they are missing top scorer Oumar Niasse through suspension. Wayne Rooney has a Super Mega PGM of 22-27, as does the young Dominic Calvert-Lewin.

The hosts could really do with putting some ground between them and the Hammers, who are just 2 points behind them in 18th. The presence of a new manager in the stands might help them over the line, with Spreadex offering an Everton/West Ham Goal Supremacy spread of 0.15-0.35 alongside a Total Goals spread of 2.4-2.6.