By Dean White

26th May, 2023 | 9:10am

Chris Sutton predicts West Ham United clash v Leicester City on final day of Premier League season

Chris Sutton has backed Leicester City to beat West Ham United on the final day of the Premier League season at the King Power Stadium on Sunday.

Leicester need to win and hope that other results go their way in order to avoid being relegated to the Championship.

West Ham are safe in 14th and can realistically move up to finish in 12th if they beat the Foxes, Wolves fail to win at Arsenal and Chelsea lose at home to Newcastle with a three-goal swing in favour of the Irons.

Sutton, however, doesn’t see either of those things happening.

Although he predicts Leicester will win 2-1 against West Ham, he believes Everton will beat Bournemouth to relegate Dean Smith’s side.

“From my last month of predictions, it feels like I have only got about one right – there have been so many strange results. Take Newcastle’s 0-0 draw against Leicester on Monday for example. We know how bad the Foxes are defensively and I would have bet my house on Newcastle scoring,” Sutton said on the BBC Sport website on Friday (26 May).

“The amazing thing about Leicester and Leeds is that they both score lots of goals, more than anyone else in the bottom half of the table. Leicester have scored 49, which is as many as Aston Villa, who are seventh.

“But both of them are so poor defensively, which is why they are down there.

“Leicester gambled that they could draw at Newcastle, win this game and stay up. I think the first two parts will go according to plan, but sadly the last bit is out of their hands and victory here might not be enough to save them.

“West Ham may rotate a few players with the Europa Conference League final in mind, but their away form has been poor anyway. They went from the end of August to the start of April without managing a single league success on the road.”

No risks

David Moyes won’t be blamed for naming a weakened squad for this game because he needs to keep his star players fit for the upcoming Europa Conference League final.

West Ham play Fiorentina in Prague on 7 June, which is less than two weeks away.

If Moyes plays the likes of Kurt Zouma, Declan Rice, Jarrod Bowen and Lucas Paqueta against Leicester and they pick up any injuries, he’ll be massively criticised for taking an unnecessary risk.

West Ham have the chance to win European silverware and qualify for the Europa League in Prague – a fitting destination based on the club’s Czech influence in recent seasons.

We should expect the likes of Ben Johnson, Thilo Kehrer, Aaron Cresswell, Michail Antonio, Maxwel Cornet and potentially some youth players to come into the side to start at Leicester.

If we lose and no one gets injured, we doubt Hammers fans will mind.