Sky Sports host Jeff Stelling predicts crucial West Ham United result against Newcastle
Jeff Stelling has predicted that West Ham will bounce back from their controversial defeat at Chelsea with victory in the next Premier League game against Newcastle.
The Hammers lost 2-1 at Stamford Bridge, after a VAR decision to rule out Maxwel Cornet’s equaliser which was met with wide outrage and has since been acknowledged as wrong by the PGMOL.
But Stelling doesn’t see that having a negative lasting effect as he expects David Moyes’ side to win 2-1 over the Magpies at the London Stadium on his Sky Sports Super6 predictions.
Despite a creditable 3-3 with Manchester City and an unfortunate defeat at Anfield along the way, Eddie Howe’s side haven’t actually won a top flight match since the opening weekend of the season.
They come to Stratford off the back of a 0-0 draw with Crystal Palace, while the Irons have a Europa Conference League game on Thursday night (8 September) against FCSB to navigate first.
Back on the horse
The quicker the team can a couple of results under the belt to move on from the debacle at Chelsea the better.
David Moyes was staggered at the decision and was understandably very vocal in his criticism of it, in a way that managers tend to shy away from these days for fear of punishment.
The Hammers played pretty well in that game, although the subsequent events at the ever-measured Blues have shown that wasn’t as hard as it sometimes is.
Nevertheless, Moyes has got this side back on track to some degree after a thoroughly deflating start to the season, and the fact that the officials had brought to an end a three-game unbeaten run in all competitions will have been a large part of why he was so unhappy with how things went.
A win over Newcastle, as Stelling expects, preferably off the back of a comfortable result in Europe, should help stabilise the situation again.
It is still relatively early days this season, and the West Ham fans have already been through a pretty wide range of emotions amid all drama, so everyone at the club would probably benefit from a few straight forward results now if at all possible.