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We look ahead to Sunday’s Premier League game at London Stadium with our West Ham vs Arsenal prediction and preview. Can the Hammers spring an upset to boost survival hopes and dent Mikel Arteta’s title hopes?
West Ham vs Arsenal: The Key Stats
- Arsenal are comfortable favourites to get three points against West Ham to boost their title charge, winning 58.1% of the Opta supercomputer’s pre-match simulations.
- West Ham have lost 38 Premier League games against Arsenal, including the reverse fixture this season (2-0).
- Arsenal have scored 27 goals via set-pieces in the Premier League this season, more than any other side.
Sunday’s action will conclude with a match that could have huge implications at both ends of the Premier League table.
Arsenal are looking to strengthen their grip on top spot, holding a five-point cushion at the summit ahead of the weekend’s action, while West Ham will be hoping to move out of the relegation zone.
It has been quite the week for Arsenal, whose title charge received a boost in the shape of Manchester City’s 3-3 draw with Everton on Monday, before the Gunners booked their place in the Champions League final for the first time since 2006 with a 1-0 win over Atlético Madrid on Tuesday.
With a double still firmly on the cards, Mikel Arteta will not want focus to slip away, especially with Man City having the chance to cut that gap to two points on Saturday.
Arsenal have already equalled their club record for most wins in a single season (41 across all competitions), previously winning 41 in the 1970-71 campaign.
Last weekend, they came out firing in the first half, with a stellar attacking display resulting in all three of their goals in the 3-0 win over Fulham; they accumulated 2.5 expected goals (xG), their highest total in the first 45 minutes of a Premier League game this season.
Viktor Gyökeres scored a double against Fulham to take him to nine goals in his last 12 league appearances, the most of any player in this timeframe (31 January onwards). His shot conversion rate in this time is 47%, compared to just 15% across his first 21 matches (5 goals from 33 shots).
And Bukayo Saka has slotted back in like he never left after an injury layoff, with his goal sending Arsenal to the Champions League final.
He’s also been involved in more Premier League goals against West Ham than any other opponent (five goals, four assists), with these nine involvements coming in his last eight appearances against them.
Of course, Saka has also long played a part in Arsenal’s effectiveness from set-pieces, and there’s every reason to suspect the Gunners could do some damage from such situations this weekend.
After all, they’ve scored 27 set-piece goals in the Premier League this season, more than any other side, with their 17 from corners also the most by a team in a single campaign. West Ham, by contrast, have conceded the most corner goals (15), and only Bournemouth (25) have let in more from set plays than the Hammers (23).
Despite losing 3-0 to Brentford last time out, the Hammers will feel fairly confident on their return to London Stadium as they are unbeaten in their last six home Premier League games (W3 D3).
They last had a longer unbeaten run on home soil between September 2015 and April 2016 in their final season at Upton Park (15 games), and they might take some heart from the fact Arsenal lost their last away game, though that was to Man City.
West Ham can’t afford to drop points, with Tottenham taking advantage of that loss to Brentford; Spurs beat Aston Villa to move out of the drop zone, leapfrogging Nuno Espírito Santo’s side in the process.
Despite their strong form at the London Stadium, West Ham have lost all five home London derbies in the Premier League this term – no team in English league history have ever lost six home games against fellow London teams in a season.
Jarrod Bowen will likely be key to them getting a result. He has seven assists across his last six home Premier League appearances for West Ham.
However, even if West Ham are at their attacking best, they are coming up against the Premier League’s best defence. Arsenal have kept 30 clean sheets across all competitions this season, their most in a single campaign since 1993-94 (30) and most by a top-flight team since Liverpool in 2021-22 (32).
West Ham vs Arsenal Head-to-Head
West Ham have lost 38 Premier League games against Arsenal – they’ve only lost more often against Liverpool (39), while the Gunners have only beaten Everton more (40).
That includes the reverse fixture, which Arsenal won 2-0 in October. They’ve completed the Premier League double over the Hammers 12 times previously, with only Manchester United doing so more against an opponent (16 vs Villa, 14 vs Everton).
Arsenal have also won their last two away league games against West Ham, winning 6-0 in 2023-24 and 5-2 last season. In English league history, only West Brom have scored 5+ goals in three consecutive away games against an opponent (vs Birmingham City between 1957 and 1960).
West Ham vs Arsenal Prediction
Given Arsenal’s strong record against West Ham, it is no surprise they are being given a 58.1% chance of victory by the Opta supercomputer.
West Ham’s hopes of clinching all three points sit at 19.3%, while a draw, which wouldn’t be enough to move them back out of the relegation zone, has a 22.6% chance of occurring.
West Ham vs Arsenal Predicted Lineups
West Ham: Mads Hermansen, Kyle Walker-Peters, Konstantinos Mavropanos, Axel Disasi, El Hadji Malick Diouf, Jarrod Bowen, Tomás Soucek, Mateus Fernandes, Crysencio Summerville, Pablo, Valentín Castellanos.
Head coach: Nuno Espírito Santo
Arsenal: David Raya, Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel, Riccardo Calafiori, Declan Rice, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Bukayo Saka, Eberechi Eze, Leandro Trossard, Viktor Gyökeres.
Head coach: Mikel Arteta
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world, and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.s
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