Ex-Arsenal man Paul Merson has backed Liverpool to defeat West Ham in Saturday’s ‘massive’ Premier League clash at Anfield.
The Reds head into the fixture against David Moyes’ side in great shape after winning their last 11 games and remaining unbeaten in their last 14 (across all competitions).
“This is a massive football match in the Premier League,” he told Sportskeeda (via West Ham Zone).
“West Ham got a good result against Wolves in the Premier League, but Southampton knocked them out of the FA Cup.
“Liverpool are rolling along and I don’t think there is a team out there that can prevent them from scoring, so I think they’ll win and put major pressure on Manchester City as they prepare to take on Manchester United at the Etihad Stadium.”
Merson has predicted a 2-0 win for Liverpool and a win against the Hammers tomorrow evening would see us reduce the gap to Manchester City back to three points before they entertain their City rivals at the Etihad on Sunday.
West Ham may prove to be a tough nut to crack, however, and have performed well themselves this season even if they were disappointingly knocked out of the FA Cup by Southampton on Wednesday night.
We did suffer our first defeat of the season agains the Hammers back in November when we were beaten 3-2 in London.
The London Stadium outfit are currently fifth in the table, just two points behind Manchester United who occupy the final Champions League spot in the table at the moment.
We’re expecting to be without Thiago Alcantara for the clash at Anfield tomorrow and it’s also unclear whether Curtis Jones will be fit after the Academy graduate was taken off at half-time of Wednesday’s FA Cup victory over Norwich with a thigh injury.
Jurgen Klopp did confirm that he didn’t think the 21-year-old’s knock was a ‘real injury’ but insisted it was better to be precautions as we head into a busy and important few months of our season.
Let’s hope we can perform well enough to learn all three points to keep the pressure on Pep Guardiola’s side.