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West Ham v. Arsenal- Three things to look out for

The Hammers face Arsenal this Saturday at Upton Park in a crucial battle for top four with Arsenal out for revenge, having lost against West Ham earlier in the season. Here are three things to look out for in the game…

Will a refereeing decision cost us again?

I don’t like complaining about refereeing decisions. Teams get unlucky all the time, it happens. But when the decisions are clearly wrong and they happen consistently that’s when it becomes a problem. Now the debate over whether the referees should have video technology to help them has been a long-lasting one. Will it ever happen? Who knows. What I do know is that if we did have it this season, we would be in a much better position.

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Let’s look back to the game against Crystal Palace. We’re 2-1 up, Cheikhou Kouyate gets a straight red, we end the game 2-2. It was clear to all watching that Kouyate got the ball cleanly with both Slaven Bilic and Alan Pardew agreeing that the decision was very harsh. That red-card changed the game and allowed Palace to create more chances which ultimately led to the goal. We can also look to the FA Cup game against Manchester United where it appeared that Bastian Schweinsteiger fouled Randolph which prevented him from saving Anthony Martial’s equaliser. And then there’s the game against Chelsea where both their goals came as a result of a refereeing error.

We can’t ignore that some refereeing decisions have gone in our favour but this is infrequent. Will we drop points this week at the hands of the referee again? Let’s hope not.

Key battle- Mohamed Elneny v. Dimitri Payet/ Manuel Lanzini

Before Arsenal signed Elneny in January from Basel it’s safe to say that he was relatively unknown to fans of the Premier League. He’s not an attacker who will get the crowd on the edge of their seats (although he did against Barcelona). Rather, Elneny goes about his job quietly, breaking up play and allowing the likes of Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez to roam freely. When we played Arsenal at the Emirates we saw our attackers get into space often but it’s difficult to envisage that with an Elneny-Coquelin midfield. Both these players are defensively-minded with Elneny appearing to be all over the pitch when watching him, applying high pressure and constantly looking for a forward-pass to start new attacks.

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It will be an intriguing battle this Saturday with Elneny in-form but if this season has taught us anything it’s that our attackers can perform against the best of them.

Our Premier League form

There’s talk of West Ham getting top four every week but for that to happen our Premier League form has to improve. It’s fair to say that most teams in the Premier League this season have been inconsistent and we are not excluded from this. Yes, we have only lost two games in our previous ten. But we have also only won four games. This has to change. In a previous post I looked at our remaining fixtures and they are all winnable but we cannot afford to squander chances in games. With only seven games remaining, this week’s game against Arsenal is crucial and is increasingly looking like one where we must win if we want to keep our top four hopes alive.