Alan Hansen’s Premier League Preview: West Ham v Burnley

West Ham host Burnley this weekend with the newly-promoted side a surprising 6 points clear of the Londoners. Owen Coyle’s team have been one of the surprise packages of the season with an excellent record at Turf Moor and now they’ll be buoyed by their first away point of the season coming in their shock late 3-3 draw at Eastlands.

The Clarets will see this trip as another match they can gain points in although the Hammers form has picked up of late despite a poor defensive record. Gianfranco Zola’s team are not struggling for goals after scoring in each of the last nine Premier League games. They’ve scored 16 goals in this run but the downside for the little Italian is the 20 goals they’ve conceded. In fact, West Ham have conceded two or more goals in eight of their last nine league games which is just not good enough at this level.

There’s sure to be goals with Burnley in town as they’ve conceded a massive 20 goals in just five away games this season. That defensive record and the fact that the Clarets have gained the joint least amount of points on the road with Hull (1 point) surely gives West Ham all the belief they need to pick up their 3rd win of the season. However, with a record of throwing away leads like West Ham, it’s worth being cautious when picking up a winner.

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

West Ham have thrown away two goal leads in two of the last four games so will be determined not to let any leads slip but with Burnley’s growing self-belief that may be difficult as they’ve shown they can pick themselves up despite heavy defeats at Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham. The Clarets will need to be wary of Hammers midfielder Mark Noble who has created a divisional high 20 goal scoring chances from set-pieces this season.

The Hammers are also unbeaten against Burnley in their last 9 meetings in all competitions dating back to 1979. I am backing the home side not to lose this weekend but with West Ham so fragile in defence I am covering my options with a home win and a draw on Premier 10 with a £45,000 rollover up for grabs.

Tags: Alan Hansen, Burnley, Premier 10, Premier League, West Ham

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 26th, 2009 at 15:56 and is filed under Features, Home Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.