West Ham vs Burnley Odds
| West Ham Odds | -150 |
| Burnley Odds | +375 |
| Draw | +300 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -138 / +107 |
West Ham look to stay in the top half of the table when they take on Burnley.
The Hammers are coming off a 1-0 loss to Freiburg in the Europa League on Thursday, but they have been in decent form in the Premier League beating Brentford and Everton in back to back matches. David Moyes has his team in a position again to potentially get a European place in the table, so three points here would be massive.
Burnley have now fallen to the bottom of the table and it doesn't look like things are getting better any time soon. The Clarets have just 13 points on the season and have only accumulated two points in their last nine matches. They outplayed West Ham in the previous meeting despite losing the match, so they should be able to give them a good battle here.
West Ham
West Ham have been a bit fortunate to be in the position that they are in the table. The Hammers have 42 points on the season, but based on Understat's expected points metric, they should only have 31.1 points.
The main reason they have over-performed so much is because of their offense. West Ham have been so good at capitalizing on the few transition opportunities they get a match. They have been basically been playing without a true striker because Jarrod Bowen has been in amazing form. They are the worst team the league at getting the ball into the penalty box once it reaches the final third, only having a 27.9% final third to box entry conversion rate.
This season, West Ham have scored 42 goals off of 36.9 expected and are only averaging 1.25 npxG per 90 minutes, which is 14th in the Premier League.
The West Ham defense has been disaster as well. Last weekend they conceded close to three expected goals to Everton, which really wasn't that shocking given how they set up. They are the most passive team in the Premier League and it hasn't been the best approach. The Hammers are allowing 1.63 npxG and are dead last in the Premier League in box entries allowed.
Burnley
Burnley actually had a really good performance against Bournemouth last Sunday. They completely controlled the match and tilted the field on Bournemouth, but in the end they got caught on the wrong side of variance.
Burnley 0 : 2 Bournemouth
▪ xG: 1.59 – 1.58
▪ xThreat: 1.92 – 0.77
▪ Possession: 74.0% – 26.0%
▪ Field Tilt: 78.9% – 21.1%
▪ Def Action Height: 48.1 – 43.7#msbot_eng#eplpic.twitter.com/Kuv6DTXrsp— markstats bot (@markstatsbot) March 3, 2024
The biggest problem for Burnley this season has been chance creation, especially from even game states. They can look good and be decent when playing from behind, but from even game states they are only averaging 0.87 xG per 90 minutes.
Defensively, Burnley have been running pretty poor as of late. Over their last six matches they have conceded 18 goals off 11.8 expected goals, which has really come down to poor play from James Trafford in net.
Vincent Kompany has abandoned the high pressing, possession based system out of a 4-2-3-1 that brought them so much success in the Championship and has instead moved them to a 4-4-2. The principles are still the same, but the idea is that the more basic structure should help them improve a little bit out of possession. They have been more passive than they were in the first few months of the season and are a better defensive side than they've shown this year.
West Ham vs Burnley
Prediction
Given the way West Ham have been playing, they are due for a bad result and are overvalued here. Especially when this match is sandwiched between their Europa League round of 16 tie with Freiburg.
Don't be surprised if Burnley control this match and play very similarly to the way they did against Bournemouth. The difference between West Ham and Bournemouth is the Cherries are a much better offense at generating chances.
You simply cannot allow the number of box entries, final third entries and chances that West Ham do and be priced as high as they are, even if it is against one of the two worst teams in the Premier League.
West Ham won the previous meeting at Turf Moor, but Burnley actually won the expected goals battle 1.3 to 0.9.
I only have West Ham projected at -122, so I like the value on Burnley +1 at -134.
