West Ham United v Nottingham Forest: EPL Betting Preview
West Ham is still 18th in the table, but their recent form isn’t so bad for a team in the region of the Premier League classification table.
The London side has lost only one game in the last 5 matches, and they managed to collect a point against top table Newcastle and big spender Chelsea in the last two games.
The visitors on the other hand have been somewhat ‘welcome’ visitors in their last 5 Premiership games as they won only one in five and collected 4 points out of 15 possible, against Southampton.
Moreover, the visitors also have the worst away record in the season so far, as that victory against Southampton was actually the only one of Nottingham Forest away from home this season.
The hosts also have better team news as the list of injuries is more of a concern to the visitors than for the hosts.
However, if the hosts fail to win this game there’s a big expectation of pressure and booing coming from the stands, as the fan base doesn’t seem very fond of Moyes at this moment.
Betting Preview
The poor record of the visitors on the road seems to be the main factor here, alongside the injuries of Nottingham Forest.
The hosts are the favourites in the 1×2 market with odds around 1.78, while the visitors have a positive handicap of +3/4 ball @1.89 in the Asian Handicap market.
It should also be a tense game that neither side wants to lose, and the odds of the over / under market seem to reflect it as the lines of the AH O/U now stand at 2.25 with odds around even.
Neither side is actually living stable days and I rarely like bets in advance involving teams that are struggling. While the 13th place in the table of Nottingham Forest isn’t exactly a catastrophic one for their level of ambition in general, their away record is very negative indeed.
Looking for Value: In-Running Market
The best potential strategies here seem to be waiting to see if West Ham dominates the first minutes, and if they’re really close to scoring, buying them at -0.75 around 2.0 unless the handicap ‘rises’ to -1.
If they dominate the game but fail to score, a bet of West Ham -0.5 @2.0 around the 30th minute could be valuable too.
Also, considering the very poor away record of the visitors and the team news, we can also expect West Ham to be a good bet if the visitors score some lucky goal very early in the match and stop attacking at all.
