Can Jürgen Klopp’s men make it five league wins in a row? We look ahead to Sunday’s Premier League fixture at Anfield with our Liverpool vs West Ham prediction and preview.
Liverpool vs West Ham: The Quick Hits
- The Opta supercomputer expects Liverpool to collect a fifth successive Premier League win on Sunday, giving the Reds a 61.6% chance of victory against West Ham.
- Liverpool have earned more points from losing positions than any other Premier League side this season (nine), winning all three of the games in which they’ve fallen behind.
- West Ham boss David Moyes has never won a Premier League game at Anfield, taking just six points from 18 trips there with Everton, Manchester United, Sunderland and West Ham.
Match Preview
Liverpool have not exactly made things easy for themselves this season, but they say it’s a sign of champions to win without playing well. The excitement building around Anfield will reach fever pitch if Jürgen Klopp’s Reds can make it five Premier League wins on the spin against West Ham on Sunday.
Having overcome red cards to beat Bournemouth and Newcastle United in August, Liverpool found themselves in trouble once again at Molineux last week. They trailed Wolves at the break after Pedro Neto ran rings around Joe Gomez and Joël Matip, but as is so often the case, Klopp’s team found a way to escape a sticky situation.
The introductions of Luis Díaz and Darwin Núñez transformed Liverpool’s attack, with goals from Cody Gakpo and Andy Robertson – plus a late Hugo Bueno own goal – sealing their fourth successive league win. They have claimed the most points from losing positions (nine) in the Premier League this season, winning all three games they’ve trailed in (also doing so versus Bournemouth and Newcastle).
Though parts of Liverpool’s 2022-23 campaign were nightmarish, they enjoyed a strong end to the season and this summer’s midfield rebuild has contributed to a confident mood at Anfield. Liverpool are on the longest current unbeaten run in the Premier League (16 matches), recording 11 wins and five draws since a 4-1 defeat at Manchester City in April.
Liverpool should be further boosted by the returns of several defensive mainstays this week. Captain Virgil van Dijk is available for selection after serving an extended two-match ban following his red card at Newcastle, while Ibrahima Konaté came off the bench last week and played 80 minutes of the UEFA Europa League win at LASK on Thursday. Trent Alexander-Arnold, meanwhile, is hoping to return after a hamstring issue sidelined him against Wolves.
Further forward, Liverpool will be looking for Mohamed Salah to continue providing creativity – no player has bettered the Egyptian’s tally of four Premier League assists this season after he teed up two goals at Molineux.
Salah has now recorded either a goal or an assist in 11 consecutive Premier League games, and only three players have ever done so in 12 straight matches in the competition. They are Stan Collymore (a run of 12 between March and August 1995), Jamie Vardy (15 between August and December 2015), and Salah himself (15 between August and December 2021).
Aiming to keep Liverpool’s star-studded attack quiet are West Ham, who sit just three points behind them in the fledgling league table, occupying sixth place with 10 points from five outings ahead of Matchday 6.
Things could have looked even rosier for David Moyes’ team, who led Manchester City at the London Stadium last Saturday when James Ward-Prowse nodded in Vladimír Coufal’s cross. The former Southampton man has now scored or assisted a goal in each of his last six Premier League appearances, including all four since joining West Ham. There have been eight previous instances of a player contributing to a goal in each of their first five Premier League games for a club, most recently City striker Erling Haaland last season.
While City stepped things up to deny West Ham a result with Jérémy Doku, Bernardo Silva and Haaland scoring, Moyes could take plenty of positives from their display. The Scot is looking to end a personal hoodoo at Anfield, having failed to win any of his 18 Premier League trips there with Everton, Manchester United, Sunderland and West Ham (six draws, 12 defeats). The only manager to take charge of more away Premier League games against a single team without victory is Moyes himself – he has gone 19 without winning at Arsenal.
If West Ham are to cause an upset, the counter-attacking prowess of Jarrod Bowen could be key, with the winger netting in all three of their Premier League away games this term. Only two players have previously scored in four successive away games in the competition for the Hammers, with Frédéric Kanouté doing so in January 2001 and Michail Antonio enjoying a run of five ending in October 2020.
Edson Álvarez came off last week after suffering from fatigue but should be fit to join Tomáš Souček in midfield. Fellow new arrivals Konstantinos Mavropanos and Mohammed Kudus started the Europa League win over TSC Bačka Topola on Thursday, with the latter scoring, and could make their first Premier League starts for West Ham.
Liverpool vs West Ham Head-to-Head
West Ham have a dismal record against Liverpool in recent seasons. Since doing the double over the Reds in 2015-16, they have won just one of their last 14 Premier League meetings (two draws, 11 defeats), triumphing 3-2 at home in November 2021.
At Anfield, Liverpool have won their last six league games against West Ham. The Reds have only lost one of their last 50 home top-flight matches against them, going down 3-0 under Brendan Rodgers in August 2015.
West Ham were on the wrong side of a 1-0 scoreline when they last visited Anfield in October 2022, with Núñez scoring the only goal of the game before Alisson saved a Bowen penalty.
Liverpool were forced to come from behind when the teams last met at the London Stadium in April, with Gakpo and Matip on target after Lucas Paquetá opened the scoring.
Recent Form
Liverpool are unbeaten in their last 14 home league games, recording 11 wins and three draws since a 2-1 defeat to Leeds United last October.
West Ham, however, are unbeaten in their three away Premier League games this season, drawing at Bournemouth before claiming victories over Brighton and Hove Albion and Luton Town.
They only won three away Premier League matches across the entirety of last season (drawing three and losing 13) and last won three successive road games in the competition in October 2021.
Should the visitors find themselves in front, they will have to remain alert. No team in Europe’s top five leagues has won more points from losing positions in 2023-24 than Liverpool’s nine, which is equal to or more than six Premier League sides managed across the whole 2022-23 campaign.
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.
Liverpool vs West Ham Prediction
The Opta supercomputer expects Liverpool to stay within touching distance of the Premier League summit on Sunday, giving them a 61.6% chance of victory.
West Ham’s chances of a first Anfield win since 2015 are rated at 15.3%, with the likelihood of a draw – which Moyes would surely see as a valuable result – standing at 23.1%.
Liverpool’s strong start to the season sees the supercomputer view them as the most likely team to challenge Man City, though their title hopes are still rated at just 6.6%, compared to the champions’ 91.1%.
Across 10,000 season simulations conducted ahead of kick-off, West Ham secured a top-seven finish in 46.3% of scenarios. Seventh (14.7%) is rated as their most likely final position, which would offer the Hammers another run at a European competition.
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