West Ham United in ‘must-win’ scenario as Bournemouth clash predicted by Mark Lawrenson
After both sides were beaten in midweek, West Ham United will host Bournemouth on Monday evening (24 October) with a win in mind.
The Hammers battled hard and performed admirably away at Liverpool but could not find a way past Alisson as Darwin Nunez’s header settled the game.
Bournemouth. meanwhile, had a much more worrying defeat at home to Southampton in a fairly local encounter as Che Adams notched the only goal of the game at the Vitality Stadium.
Mark Lawrenson sees Monday evening’s clash as a must-win affair for the Irons if they have any kind of ambition of moving up the Premier League table.
“West Ham were decent at Anfield and obviously missed that penalty but Bournemouth were done at home by Southampton,” Lawrenson said to Paddy Power.
“It’s one of those where if you want to climb up the table, which West Ham do, it’s probably must win so I’ll go for David Moyes’ team to get the points. West Ham 2-0 Bournemouth.”
Simple job
The Cherries may have improved in recent weeks under interim manager Gary O’Neill but they still should be light work for West Ham if they get anywhere near their performance levels from Anfield.
Plenty of rest has helped between that game and Monday’s clash even though there are Europa League games to come not long after so the full quota should be ready to go and beat Bournemouth comfortably.
There is no hiding from the fact that West Ham should be much further up the division at this stage in the season despite a tricky start to the campaign so the movement up the division has to start on Monday.
Bournemouth are one of the relegation favourites for a reason this year and Moyes has to be ready to punish them with his superior quality all over the field.
Anything other than a victory may well cause unrest around the London Stadium with the team underperforming on the whole.