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West Ham Fan View: 3 things to look out for against Burnley

The pressure is STILL on Hammers manager Slaven Bilic
The pressure is STILL on Hammers manager Slaven Bilic

West Ham face Burnley at Turf Moor this Saturday with the aim of building on our last game where we beat Swansea. Here are three things to look out for…

Will we see a rejuvenated West Ham attack?

Much attention has been given to West Ham’s defensive issues but we can’t ignore our poor attack. We have only scored 7 goals from 7 games despite signing the likes of Marko Arnautovic and Javier Hernandez. Now we still need to improve our defence and Burnley’s record does show the importance of this. Like us, they have scored 7 goals though they sit in 6th place on 12 points. But there has to be a balance and we need to score more goals and create more chances.

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This Saturday should see Manuel Lanzini start his first game of the season and the fans are undoubtedly excited to see him back. With Lanzini in our team, we see faster attacking play and greater attacking intent. There is more creativity in our team and we should see a rejuvenated West Ham attack this Saturday against Burnley. Will we also see Michail Antonio get his first goal of the season?

Can we start looking up rather than down?

Following last week’s win against Swansea, we finally moved out of the relegation zone having been inside it since our loss against Manchester United in the first game of the season. We need to be able to start looking up rather than down and we are currently on 7 points, 2 away from the relegation zone , but only 2 away from 10th place.

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Building on our last game against Swansea this week will give us momentum going into our next few games. Slaven Bilic said that “we’re going to have almost the whole squad available for Saturday.” There can be no excuses and a win this weekend will allow us to progress up the table and slowly start to forget about the relegation zone.

Will our away form harm us this season?

Last season, we saw us struggle at home though we were a far better away side with West Ham ending 9th in the Premier League ‘away table’. But it appears to be the opposite this season. We only have 1 point from 4 away games and with three out of our next four games being away, we cannot continue our away form or it will harm us this season. We have a great record against Burnley, winning our last five games against them and they did lose one of their best defenders in Michael Keane in the summer.

My prediction? 1-2.