China In Your Hand

The first match of the Premier League weekend looks set to be a lively one as two sides generally on the up have still looked defensively vulnerable of late.

We’re backing Arsenal to win but with over 3.5 goals in the match at best odds of 13/4 with Ladbrokes. That’s an improvement on virtually evens money to simply take the Gunners to triumph.

Despite only 34% of top flight matches featuring 4 goals or more, that percentage soars to 57% for Arsenal games - the joint highest in the division. West Ham rank T4 in the same metric with 43% of their fixtures producing over 3.5 goals.

The common ground here is that both sides have kept a paltry 3 clean sheets in 21 PL fixtures.

But I fear more for the Hammers right now after taking just 1 point from winnable recent games with Burnley and Brighton. Arnautovic saved them from consecutive defeats but now the Austrian is openly courting a move to China. This could be another case of West Ham stumbling as soon as things start to look up.

Unai Emery had a couple of bad days around Christmas too, but Arsenal have only lost 1 league game to a side outside the top-4 all season and the partnership of Aubameyang and Lacazette is thriving.