West Ham vs Chelsea Match Prediction, Preview and Betting Tips

The Saturday Lunchtime kick off see Chelsea’s second London Derby in a week as they travel across London to Upton Park to face West Ham.

Chelsea are ludicrously the massive favourites at a frankly insulting price of 10/11 (not a misprint) with Paddy Power, whereas West Ham can be backed at 10/3 with Betfred. The draw is available at 13/5 with Bet Victor.

‘Rafa Benitez’s Blue Army…’ the Chelsea fans were singing in their recent games against Fulham and Man City. At least something like that, I wasn’t paying attention. You do have to laugh at the site of a middle aged man waving an A3 bit of paper with ‘Rafa Out’ on it, don’t you? I would love to have been there as he went through his pre-match checklist – Keys -Check. Wallet – Check. Ticket – Check. A3 bit of paper with ‘Rafa Out’ on it – Check. I bet he spent a good 20 minutes sitting in front of the computer working out what the best thing to print out was, for maximum impact. He probably used up a fiver’s worth of ink printing that out.

So Benitez has made an inauspicious start so far to his Chelsea career, with successive goal-less draws. In fairness to Benitez, he’s always been renowned for his defensive base – Liverpool perennially kept the most clean sheets in a season under his stewardship – but it’s not the sort of results that sway the partisan masses. Chelsea now have not won in six league games, and have only one win in ten in all competitions. Those two clean sheets ended a run of ten games without a clean sheet. West Ham have failed to keep up their early season pace which saw them flirting briefly with 5th place, and have only won once in their last six games themselves. Crucially, they are very strong at home, losing only once, and have one of the best defensive records in the league.

Straight off the bat, if you back Chelsea at odds-on in this match you’re an idiot. I can’t stress that enough, 10/11 offers no value whatsoever with Chelsea in the mess that they are currently in. They may actually win, but you should not be backing them at those odds. In fact, what I suggest you do is directly oppose the Chelsea win – if you have a Betfair account you can Lay a Chelsea win @ 19/18 – offering you odds against that West Ham win or draw. If you don’t like the idea of laying a bet, then you can get the same result through a ‘double chance’, and get odds of 909/1000 (seriously guys?!) with Ladbrokes on a West Ham win or Draw – odds aren’t quite as good though.

I expect this to be a fairly turgid affair truth be told, West Ham don’t concede many at home, whereas Chelsea under Benitez appear to not concede any full stop. Under 2.5 goals at Evens with William Hill appeals greatly, but for something different i’m going to recommend exactly one first half goal @ 17/10 with Bet Victor.

Which brings us to the hardest part of this preview – who is going to score the goals? The massive elephant in the Chelsea’s room is Fernando Torres, Benitez’ love child, Abramovich’s most costly mistake and Chelsea’s only ‘striker’ (I use the term loosely…) Now Torres has scored six goals in six appearances against West Ham, in fact he’s scored against them more than any other side. But you should probably back Kevin Nolan to score first @ 10/1 with Blue Square instead, as at least he’s got a punchers chance of actually scoring a goal, which Torres patently doesn’t.

Betting Tips

Lay Chelsea @ 19/18 (Betfair) – click here, sign up. get £20 free

Or Double chance – West Ham/Draw @ 909/1000 (Betfair)

Exactly one first half goal @ 17/10 (Bet Victor) – click here, sign up, get £25 free

Nolan to score first @ 10/1 (Blue Square)

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