PREMIER LEAGUE SUNDAY: The Striker previews Sunday’s two Premier League games with stats and a recommended BETDAQ bet. Its Nottingham Forest v West Ham at 2pm and the weekend highlight Chelsea v Spurs at 4.30pm.
NOTTINGHAM FOREST V WEST HAM
2pm What a fascinating Super Sunday we have this week in the Premier League! We have two cracking markets on BETDAQ Betting Exchange that look very competitive, and obviously the big talking point of the day in the London Derby later between Chelsea and Spurs. We kick the day off with Nottingham Forest hosting West Ham however, and we have a very interesting market here. At the time of writing, West Ham are trading marginally odds on favourites – sitting at a price of around 1.94. There’s going to be some big opinions on their price either way here, but I’m sure we’ll get a better guide of where Nottingham Forest stand after this game with a view of them staying in the Premier League this season. It’s very early days of course, but they were easily beaten by Newcastle last weekend. I know Newcastle are a much improved side these days, and to be honest they are only heading upwards given the money they have backing them now, but it was still a disappointing performance from Nottingham Forest. It’s always going to be tough to stay in the Premier League when you come up from the Championship, and you have to feel their home form is going to be a key factor.
That makes fixtures like this very important. We shouldn’t read too much into West Ham’s opening game – they came up against Manchester City and you can forgive any side losing to City these days. They looked so strong it’s very difficult to see past them for the title already to be honest – where do they drop enough points not to lift the title? It was interesting to see David Moyes opt to not start his new signings on the opening weekend – all eyes on the starting XI here to see does he make a change or keep things the same. West Ham have been a much improved side under Moyes over the last two season, and I feel they are worth backing here at 1.95. Nottingham Forest are going to have a difficult time adjusting to the Premier League and until I see a better performance from them than last week I’m keen to be against them. I’m going to keep stakes limited given this is their first game at home, but West Ham should still get the job done here. They have been creating a huge amount of chances over the last two seasons and they can outscore Forest.
The Striker Says:
Two points win West Ham to beat Nottingham Forest at 1.95 with BETDAQ BETTING EXCHANGE.
You can view all markets here -> https://betdaq.biz/NotWes
MATCH STATS
● This is the first meeting between Nottingham Forest and West Ham United in any competition since January 2014, when Forest won 5-0 in an FA Cup tie at the City Ground.
● West Ham only lost one of their eight Premier League matches against Nottingham Forest between 1994 and 1999 (W4 D3), a 1-0 home defeat in January 1997. They are unbeaten in eight top-flight visits to the City Ground, since Brian Clough’s Forest beat them 2-1 in April 1986.
● West Ham have won 10 of their last 14 Premier League games against promoted sides (D2 L2), with both of their defeats in this run coming against Brentford last season.
● This is Nottingham Forest’s first home Premier League match since May 1999, winning 1-0 against Leicester in what was Ron Atkinson’s final game as a manager in English football. They won their final seven home league games last season, last winning more in a row between November 2009 and March 2010 (12).
● This will be Nottingham Forest’s 200th Premier League game – just one of the last 10 sides to reach the milestone has won their 200th match, with Watford beating Huddersfield 3-0 in October 2018.
● West Ham have won just one of their last eight Premier League games (D2 L5) and are looking to avoid losing three consecutive league games for the first time since June 2020.
● Nottingham Forest have won 43% of their Premier League games on a Sunday (6/14), their highest win rate on a specific day of the week in the competition. Forest played in the first ever Sunday Premier League match, beating Liverpool 1-0 thanks to a Teddy Sheringham goal almost 30 years ago to the day (16/08/1992).
● Nottingham Forest (5) and West Ham United (6) had the fewest shots of any side in the opening round of Premier League matches this season, with West Ham managing the only shot on target between the two sides. Meanwhile, Nottingham Forest faced more shots (23) and shots on target (10) than any other side.
● This is West Ham boss David Moyes’ 623rd Premier League match as a manager, while it is Nottingham Forest manager Steve Cooper’s second. That gap of 621 games is the largest between two Premier League managers since May 2018, when Arsenal’s Arsène Wenger had taken charge of 790 more games (828) than Huddersfield’s David Wagner (38).
● Nottingham Forest’s Jesse Lingard was involved in 13 goals in 16 Premier League appearances for West Ham in 2021 (9 goals, 4 assists). There have been seven occasions of a former West Ham player scoring his first Premier League goal for a club against the Hammers, most recently Cheikhou Kouyaté for Crystal Palace in December 2019.
CHELSEA V TOTTENHAM
4.30pm What an early season clash we have here! Although we’re only two weeks into the season, this is a huge London Derby as you feel it might set the tone for the season ahead. After their reasonably poor transfer window all the talk now is that Spurs can overtake Chelsea into third position – a win here for Chelsea would definitely go a long way to silencing that opinion and don’t forget we have the whole Frenkie de Jong saga going on in the background too. Although both sets of fans would love to call themselves title challengers, it’s hard to see them getting close to Manchester City and Liverpool – but the good news is they also look well ahead of Arsenal and Manchester United – are Manchester United even in the Top Four debate anymore? Chelsea opened their campaign with a 1-0 win away to Everton – they had to grind it out, but they actually played very well and finished the game with an xG of over two. Spurs gave everyone a few LOL’s to start the season as they went 1-0 down against Southampton, but they quickly recovered to hammer the Saints 4-1. Although Spurs scored more goals than Chelsea, if you look at the xG figures they broadly performed the same against similar quality opposition. This should be a cracker, and a very entertaining game.
It’s hard to see the game being too cagey – Spurs are creating a lot of chances under Conte but to his credit he seems to have “fixed” their issues at the back. Obviously the jury is still out on that one until they come up against the top sides but he has this squad in a great place at the moment. You can’t see them slipping up much against the weaker sides. It’s no surprise that we don’t have an odds on favourite here – this should be a close game – and Chelsea deserve to be favourites trading 2.34. I think the market has that correct; it’s hard to argue that they should be much shorter to be honest. If I had to have a bet in the match odds market I would lean towards laying Chelsea, but that bet doesn’t jump off the page to me. The bet that catches my eye here is Over 2.5 goals at 2.0 – I really felt that this would be odds on given the attacking nature of both sides and how they performed on the opening weekend. I think some of the meetings between these two have been cagey in the past, but I think the make-up of the teams suit goals now, and we could see a very end-to-end entertaining affair.
The Striker Says:
Two points win Over 2.5 goals at 2.0 with BETDAQ BETTING EXCHANGE.
You can view all markets here -> https://betdaq.biz/CheTot
MATCH STATS
● Since losing consecutive Premier League games against Spurs in 2018, Chelsea are unbeaten in seven games against their London rivals (W6 D1), conceding only one goal in that run.
● Tottenham Hotspur have won just one of their last 37 away matches against Chelsea in all competitions (D12 L24), a 3-1 win in April 2018 in the Premier League.
● Chelsea are facing Spurs in their first home league match of the season for the first time since the 1958-59 campaign, winning 4-2. The other two occasions they’ve done so they have lost, in 1913-14 (1-3) and 1923- 24 (0-1).
● Tottenham have won 99 Premier League London derby matches, and could be the third side to reach 100 victories after Chelsea and Arsenal. However, only West Ham (112) have lost more such matches than Spurs (97).
● Chelsea have lost two of their last three home Premier League London derby matches (W1), as many as they had in their previous 17 (W12 D3). The Blues have conceded eight goals in these three games, as many as in their previous 16 at Stamford Bridge.
● Tottenham have won their last four Premier League games by an aggregate score of 13-1, the longest current winning run in the competition. Meanwhile, since losing 3-2 at Man Utd in March, Spurs have won the most games (9), scored the second highest number of goals (31), and conceded the fewest goals (6, excluding promoted teams) of all Premier League sides.
● For a second consecutive Premier League match Chelsea will face a former manager, with Spurs’ Antonio Conte following Everton’s Frank Lampard. It is the first time a side has faced managers in back-to-back games who’ve previously taken charge of them in the top-flight since Chelsea in October 2016, when Conte himself led them to wins over Claudio Ranieri (3-0 vs Leicester) and José Mourinho (4-0 vs Man Utd).
● Tottenham’s Harry Kane has scored 41 Premier League London derby goals, second only to Thierry Henry (43). However, he’s failed to score in any of his last five against Chelsea, only having longer goalless runs against Manchester City (7 between 2017 and 2021) and Manchester United (6 between 2014 and 2016) in the top-flight.
● Chelsea midfielder Jorginho scored his 20th Premier League goal against Everton, with 18 of those penalties (90%), the highest percentage of goals scored via the penalty spot of any player with 10+ goals in Premier League history. 34% of his attempts at goal have been penalties (21/62) and 44% of his touches within the opposition box have been his penalty attempts (21/48).
● Dejan Kulusevski has nine assists in his 19 Premier League appearances for Tottenham Hotspur – only one player has ever hit double figures for assists in his first 20 appearances in the competition, with Brett Emerton doing so in the 2003-04 season for Blackburn Rovers.
