Man United vs West Ham Odds
| Man United Odds | -163 |
| West Ham Odds | +400 |
| Draw | +320 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -163o / +125u |
Manchester United will look to build off a late win against Wolves when it hosts West Ham.
Manchester United played the best match in a long time against Wolves and deserved to win, which is not something that has happened too often this season. Getting a lot of key players healthy made a huge difference, but everything is not suddenly fixed for Manchester United. It will have to follow things up against a tough West Ham team.
West Ham secured a 1-1 draw with Bournemouth on Thursday, but did not look great up until getting awarded a penalty. David Moyes somehow has his team inside the top eight currently and can really give them a cushion from the chasing pack with a result at Old Trafford.
Let's get into my Man United vs. West Ham prediction and pick.
Man United
Manchester United looked as good as it has all season in possession against Wolves on Thursday. It was a combination of a couple of different factors. First, the return of Lisandro Martínez and Luke Shaw did wonders for the Red Devils trying to build out of the back. It allowed Manchester United to apply a 3-2-5 build-up structure, which gives it a lot more balance across the board. Secondly, 18-year-old Kobbie Mainoo was sensational in the deep lying number eight role.
Casemiro started, but he's not a great on-the-ball playmaker in build up, which had been Manchester United's problem for a long time and why it was better off just playing in transition. Mainoo solved that problem by staying deep to help in build up, which allowed Manchester United to easily play through Wolves' defensive block on its way to creating over three expected goals.
With that being said, there are still problems for Manchester United out of possession. Erik ten Hag hasn't found a pressing structure that works with Manchester United's personnel. It conceded over two expected goals and was getting torched in transition in the second half against Wolves in large part because of the fact that it was only pressing with its attackers, which Wolves was able to exploit pretty easily.
Stop Pressing with just your attack, even spontaneously that ball out wide is always on or teams work on it EVERY TIME pic.twitter.com/zNKFcLzBaI
— Dharnish (@dharnishiqbal) February 2, 2024
Because they haven't found a pressing structure that works, their defensive numbers have been pretty poor all season long. Manchester United is allowing 1.52 npxG per 90 minutes and is 14th in big scoring chances allowed.
Utilize our latest bet365 bonus code to get the most out of your Premier League action.
West Ham
West Ham struggled from the start against Bournemouth because it was trying to be something it's not, which is a team that builds out of the back. It cost them its only goal as Kalvin Phillips made an errant back pass right to Dominic Solanke for a tap-in. That shot had an xG rating of 0.53 per fbref.com. For the rest of the match, Bournemouth only created 0.67 expected goals, which goes to show that West Ham's low block can be effective.
The Hammers haven't been great defensively all season, but they do play a style that can give Manchester United problems. Wolves tried to press Manchester United high countless times, and the Red Devils did a fantastic job playing right through it. West Ham is the second most passive team in the Premier League and is going to sit in the lowest defensive block possible and dare Manchester United to break them down.
That is exactly what they did in the previous meeting at the London Stadium. West Ham allowed Manchester United to have 65% of the ball and held to them to just one expected goal on 11 shots, with six of those shots coming from outside the box.
West Ham has two complete game-wreckers on the break in Jarrod Bowen and Mohammed Kudus. Both have outstanding dribbling ability, pace and are deadly finishers. Bowen used to play on the right, but when Kudus came into the team he moved up top as the lone striker, and the results have been really good. The duo has combined for 17 goals and West Ham is averaging 1.42 xG per 90 minutes, which is the highest mark of the Moyes era outside of the COVID season.
Man United vs West Ham
Prediction
While Manchester United looked great against Wolves on Thursday, it is still having problems out of possession that West Ham can exploit. What was interesting is Manchester United was sitting around -130 here against West Ham before its match against Wolves and now is up over -160. Getting a lot of key players back healthy sure does help, but everything isn't magically fixed for Manchester United because it's easy to look great after going up 1-0 inside the first 10 minutes.
West Ham's low block stifled Manchester United in the previous meeting and can do the exact same here; Manchester United is simply much better as a transition team than a build-up team.
In its 22 Premier League matches this season, Manchester United has only beaten its opponents by more than one goal one time. It was against Everton in a 3-0 win in which it lost the expected goals battle.
I only have Manchester United projected at -106, so I like the value on West Ham +1 at -125.
Pick: West Ham +1 (-125 via BetRivers)
