West Ham United play host to Aston Villa next weekend, in our final Premier League game before the international break.
Aston Villa are flying high in the Premier League table right now, and challenging for the Champions League places, whilst West Ham have the Europa League spots in our sights.
However, Villa had a big setback today, losing to top four rivals Tottenham at home, and Unai Emery now has a big concern ahead of the trip to the Hammers.
West Ham were really poor against Burnley today, and the boys will have to be so much better against the Villans next week.
It seems like we may have a decent chance to cause an upset at the London Stadium though…
Aston Villa handed major blow ahead of West Ham clash
During Villa’s defeat to Spurs this afternoon, their club captain John McGinn was handed a straight red card for a reckless challenge on Destiny Udogie.
The 29-year-old is an absolutely vital player for Villa, and is arguably the first name on Emery’s team-sheet every single week.
McGinn is incredibly strong, has wonderful composure when in possession of the football, and he makes his team tick.
Aston Villa are quite simply not the same without the Scotland international, and West Ham really need to take advantage of that fact next week.
As mentioned earlier, our all around performance will have to be a lot better than what we saw today against Burnley, if we are to have any chance of beating the Villans.
I sense that they could be there for the taking without McGinn though, as long as we take the game to them and don’t sit back and wait for the visitors to gain a foothold in the game.
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