The FanSided soccer staff make their predictions for the weekend’s Premier League games, including West Ham vs. Arsenal at the London Stadium.
The Premier League returns for another round of midweek fixtures as the holiday schedule gets into full flow. There are no marquee matchups, but the highlight of the matchweek is probably Arsenal’s trip to West Ham, fresh off a huge upset win against Chelsea at the weekend.
The Hammers played well, scoring an early goal through Marko Arnautovic and defending impressively for the remainder of the much. The win was their first since David Moyes took over at the end of November, and saw them pull level on points with 17th-place West Brom.
They’ll welcome an Arsenal side without a win in two matches following an unbeaten run that had some touting them as potential title challengers. They followed up last weekend’s loss to Manchester United with a disappointing 1-1 draw with Southampton.
The match is likely to follow a similar pattern to West Ham’s win over Chelsea. Moyes’ side pressed early on but retreated into their defensive shell after taking the lead. Arsenal are huge favorites, but the Hammers will be confident following their win on the weekend.
The other highlights of matchweek 17 see Chelsea travel to Huddersfield; Tottenham host Brighton hoping to make it two home wins out of two after a poor run of form; and Manchester City travel to Swansea with an 11-point lead in the title race to defend.
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FanSided’s soccer staff will be competing in a weekly picks league all season. The rules are simple: three points for a correct score, one for a correct result and none for an incorrect result. Here are the picks for matchweek 17:
Despite West Ham’s heroics against Chelsea, all eight of our writers predicted Arsenal to get a win against the Hammers. Even given the weekend’s results, that’s a fair reflection of where the two sides are in the table. Here’s how the predictions table stands heading into the midweek matches:
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