Crystal Palace Match Preview

West Ham United have participated in some enjoyable London derbies already this season and they will be hoping that tonight’s home encounter with Crystal Palace is another one as the Eagles make the short journey east to Stratford.

The Hammers slipped one place to sixth in the Premier League table due to the weekend’s results and will be hoping to climb again by building on the well-earned 2-1 victory over newly-promoted Leeds United at Elland Road on Friday night.

Meetings between these two teams in the past have tended to go in favour of the visitors. Although Palace did the double over West Ham last season, the hosts may fancy their chances, as Roy Hodgson’s men have had very little time to prepare for this one following their 1-1 home draw with Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday.

Another reason why the hosts will be keen for a result here is that they don’t play again until Monday night when they face a trip to Stamford Bridge to play Chelsea.

Similar to his successful run when playing Leeds, David Moyes has a decent record against the Eagles, as he has only lost one of nine matches against them. The Irons’ faithful will certainly be wanting that record to continue.

2000 home fans were in attendance for the game against Manchester United but this will unfortunately not be the case again tonight, as London has now moved into a higher tier level of Coronavirus restrictions.

Michail Antonio is back in training, following the re-occurrence of his hamstring injury suffered in the 2-1 home victory against Aston Villa last month. However, he is not fit enough to take part against the team from South-East London with Sébastien Haller again set to deputise.

After finally being handed his chance in West Yorkshire five days ago, Saïd Benrahma is now expected to make his full home debut, following his loan move from Brentford in the summer.

Moyes also has Manuel Lanzini available if he decides to make changes.

The contest in Stratford gets underway at 8pm with all this week’s matches being screened live by Amazon Prime Video. Coverage will be available from 7:30pm. The referee is David Coote.