West Ham vs Arsenal preview: How to watch, predicted lineups, score prediction & injury updates

Arsenal travel east of London on Sunday to face high-flying West Ham in the Premier League, hoping to resurrect their exceedingly faint hopes of European qualification via their league finish. Here is the match preview.

Thursday was all about progressing. Whether suffocating the entire 90 minutes and grinding out a 0-0 draw, or going hell for leather in the early exchanges and putting the result beyond doubt, they’re through to the Europa League quarter-finals.

Having done so in a less than inspiring manner, they’ve been rewarded with a quarter-final clash against Czech champions Slavia Prague, who have already seen off two British sides on route to this stage – Leicester and Rangers.

It’s about as good as it could have got for Arsenal, although the focus shifts towards Sunday where David Moyes will be seeking to well and truly put an end to Arsenal’s Premier League season.

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Arsenal vs West Ham preview – Sunday’s Premier League London derby

A painfully overused adage but one that is said with such regularity for a reason, it’s about taking one game at a time. Arsenal will not reach the European places in the division by their own accord.

Should they continue to drop needless points then they will have become the victims of their own downfall – if they weren’t already – yet even if they put a run together their fate is reliant on other sides slipping up in the final set of fixtures.

West Ham are one of those teams, who head into Sunday with a seven-point lead ahead of the Gunners as they chase their own remarkable top four ambitions.

The work Moyes has done at the London Stadium is astounding. Surviving relegation by just five points last season, the turnaround for this campaign deserves immense credit. Make no bones about it. He’s crafted an efficient team, invested superbly in, ironically, two Slavia Prague players and even Jesse Lingard (shrug) is hitting top form.

Arteta should expect nothing other than a tough afternoon in east London, just as he saw earlier on in the season when Arsenal trudged their way to a 2-1 victory at the Emirates.

How to Watch on TV

When Is Kick Off? Sunday 21 March
What Time Is Kick Off? 15:00 (GMT)
Where Is it Played? London Stadium
TV Channel/Live Stream? Sky Sports (UK) fuboTV (USA)
Referee? Jonathan Moss

Arsenal Team News vs West Ham

Arteta provided a welcome update following the defeat to Olympiacos, insisting there were fresh injury concerns after the Europa League tie. That does not, however, account for fatigue.

Granit Xhaka has now played 90 minutes in a remarkable 13 consecutive fixtures, a run that seems to be finally taking its toll on him. Evident in Thursday’s game was tiredness in the Swiss, who even began showing early signs as soon as the 40-minute mark.

The same applies to Kieran Tierney, who was an interesting choice, shall we say, to play the full 90 considering there were five substitutes to be had and Arteta preferred a more pragmatic setup. However, both are near irreplaceable in the side and will likely start once more.

Bukayo Saka and Willian are the concerns heading into Sunday. The former is facing a race against time to recover from a hamstring problem and having not been in the squad for Thursday it would constitute a big risk starting him against West Ham. Willian was dealing with a calf issue that kept him out, but has trained since so should be OK.

In central defence, Gabriel and David Luiz started another game together, hinting that it may be a complete reshuffle to face the Hammers. It wouldn’t be surprising to see both Pablo Mari and Rob Holding come in.

Gabriel Martinelli did what Gabriel Martinelli does best during his short cameo on Thursday, making a statement outing that has him in contention to start, perhaps even in front of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang who was awful on the night.

As for the hosts, Moyes revealed no changes from their last outing, so Pablo Fornals, Angelo Ogbonna, Arthur Masuaku and Andriy Yarmolenko will once again sit out.

Arsenal Predicted Lineup

West Ham: Fabianksi; Coufal, Dawson, Diop, Cresswell; Rice, Soucek, Bowen, Lingard, Benrahma, Antonio

Arsenal: Leno; Cedric, Holding, Gabriel, Tierney; Partey, Xhaka, Odegaard; Pepe, Aubameyang, Smith Rowe

West Ham vs Arsenal Score Prediction

Arsenal are conceding goals. A worrying amount of them, too.

After another strike went past Bernd Leno in the Europa League, the Gunners have now failed to keep a clean sheet in any of their last 11 matches in all competitions. Plenty of those were self-inflicted, including the last four in Europe.

With the flair they have in advanced areas and the brutality of Michail Antonio up front, West Ham will create the openings they are after on Sunday. They boast players who can turn possession into a chance in the blink of an eye and Arsenal presenting them with needless turnovers and sloppiness in their own half poses a dangerous outcome.

There is enough within the Arsenal team to beat the Hammers, but the fear of fatigue in vital areas is what worries the most.

Xhaka looks certain to start another fixture but is clearly feeling the impact of the run he’s been on, while Tierney is in a similar boat. The battle in midfield will be a crucial one for this encounter with both Declan Rice and Tomas Soucek enjoying magnificent campaigns in the Irons’ engine room, balancing physical domination with offensive support.

Thomas Partey will be granted the chance to train and build up his fitness in the two-week break to come, so this is a fixture for him to wrestle control of. There hasn’t been enough of that at a sustained level yet.

Threatening on set pieces, no side has scored more from corners and indirect free-kicks this season than West Ham. Equally, no side has conceded fewer from those situations than Arsenal. Ensuring that stat remains completely untouched will be a huge step towards securing three points that will arguably cap off the best seven days of the season (so far).

However, seeing how Arsenal manage games and with a free-flowing Lingard to contend with, the signs aren’t great.

Score Prediction: West Ham 2-0 Arsenal