West Ham United Fan View: 3 things to look out for against Liverpool

West Ham face Liverpool this Saturday with the Hammers currently sitting only one point above the relegation zone. Is Slaven Bilic’s time at the club nearing its end? Here are three things to look out for…

The easiest game out of the top six?

We desperately struggled in games against the top six last season, being on the end of some humiliating results. But few would argue against Liverpool being the side that is the weakest defensively from the big teams. We have seen throughout the past few seasons that Liverpool do sometimes struggle in games against the smaller teams and we have to take advantage of this. Their defensive organisation is poor and they have conceded 16 goals in the Premier League so far, only 3 fewer than us.

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Since Bilic has arrived at the club, we do have a good record against Liverpool. We have played Liverpool six times, winning thrice and only losing once. We did struggle in the games against Manchester United and Tottenham earlier in the season but this is a big game that we have a chance of winning.

Will we see poor game management?

When we saw Andre Ayew’s stunning strike put us up 2-0 against Crystal Palace last weekend, many fans hoped that the game was won. And we all know what happened next. Wilfried Zaha scoring in the dying minutes of the game was inevitable and this was down to poor game management.

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Far too many times this season we have conceded late goals and there have been questions over the team’s fitness. Players did not track back near the end of the game and too much space was given to the opposition. Will we see the same mistakes being repeated this weekend?

Key players missing

We are going into this weekend’s game missing several key players and our squad depth is poor. We are currently without a right-back with Sam Byram injured and Pablo Zabaleta suspended. Michail Antonio, who has been used in this position, is also injured and will be missing the game alongside Jose Fonte and James Collins.

It would not be a surprise to see Bilic play Cheikhou Kouyate at right-back and bring Declan Rice back into the first XI given that he did impress against Tottenham. Fonte will be a big miss and he has been one of our most consistent defenders this season.

My prediction? 1-3.