West Ham United vs. Arsenal – English Premier League, March 21, 2021

An unrealistically big win here for West Ham could put the east London club in Champions League places. But David Moyes will know any victory at all would show that his side has a real chance of European qualification this season.

Arsenal’s recent form will have the Gunners also believing that a top-five or six finish is still possible. So this all-London affair could end up being one of the games of the weekend.

For all of Arsenal’s improvement since the turn of the year, the club is still in mid-table and playing away at home against a side currently in a European qualification place. I think BetOnline has got its pricing all wrong here – and the home win bet looks very good value to me.

West Ham may have lost two of the last three EPL games but they were against the Manchester clubs, with the only other loss this year coming at the hands of Liverpool at the end of January. A cross-section of Premier League clubs have been played in that time and the Hammers have been able to deal with just about anyone.

After bubbling around mid-table for the majority of the season, West Ham has now taken great strides in the last two months to announce itself as a contender for a European place. The Champions League is not out of the club’s grasp – but it does need to beat teams like Arsenal if it is to achieve that.

Mikel Arteta will probably be pleased how well his own team has progressed from the dark days of December when the club was as low as 15^th in the table. There have been some good wins since then – and some much better personal performances – and the Gunners now have an outside chance of a Europa League spot and a place in the quarter-final of that competition this year.

But there is still a fragility about the way the team plays sometimes. Individuals like Bukayo Saka show how good Arsenal can look, but it is far from a consistent style. The players will be on a high after winning the north London derby and beating Leicester in recent weeks but there could be some fatigue after the Europa League excursions on Thursday.

I think these are great home win odds offered by BetOnline and don’t really know how the bookie can consider West Ham the underdog in this fixture. Both sides are on a high after recent results but there is still more belief at West Ham than Arsenal, in my opinion, and three more points here will really put the pressure on the top four – all of whom are not playing in the EPL this weekend.