Head-To-Head: West Ham vs Arsenal

West Ham and Arsenal clash in matchweek 35 of the Premier League season, with both sides fighting the battle for fourth place. A win could go a long way for either side, but who could get it?

The Premier League season is winding down, but there are still no certainties yet. The relegation battle is still open, Manchester City and Liverpool are almost neck and neck at the top, and the fight for a spot in next years Champions League campaign is heating up.

Two teams involved in that fight is West Ham and Arsenal, who will be going head-to-head this weekend in a bid to further their campaign and diminish their rivals'.

West Ham have fallen off from Arsenal with a string of poor results. A win over their London rivals could prove big in their bid to get back on track.

Arsenal have fourth right now, but would most likely love three more points to get closer to Chelsea in third and keep a healthy gap to Tottenham in fifth.

We should expect a good fight from both sides in this game, but will there be a winner?

 

Goals

West Ham: 52

Arsenal: 52

 

It's evenly matched between these two for goals. Both have scored at a fairly good rate this year, but West Ham do have an advantage in the fact that they are overachieving by their season xG rate, while Arsenal are not.

Granted, for the Gunners, it's not a big difference. Like, at all. Their season xG is 52.1, which means they are literally underachieving by -0.01.

West Ham, though, are overachieving by +7, with a season xG of 45.

That has been the order of play for West Ham for much of this season. They have had a surprisingly strong year, especially in the first half when they were the team to quell Liverpool's hopes of an invincible season, as well as beating Chelsea, who had the then-best defense in the league.

 

xG per 90 minutes

West Ham: 1.32

Arsenal: 1.58

 

The only reason why Arsenal have a higher rate here, despite both having scored the same amount of goals, is because Arsenal have played one less game than West Ham.

But again, if looking at the difference between actual rates and xG rates, West Ham are overachieving, while Arsenal are underacheiving.

Arsenal's actual goals per 90 minutes rate is 1.55, which is a -0.03 difference to their xG per 90 minutes.

West Ham's goals per 90 minutes rate is 1.47, besting their xG rate by +0.15.

 

Shots total per 90 minutes

West Ham: 12.15

Arsenal: 15.27

 

Arsenal have West Ham beat by a margin of +3.12 shots per 90 minutes here. They have been quite shot happy this year, taking the third most shots in the league with 504. But taking a large amount of shots doesn't always pay off. They have a goals per shot rate of 0.09, which isn't terrible, but West Ham have them beat.

The Hammers are 10th in the league for most shots taken with 413, and have a goals per shot rate of 0.11.

 

Shots on target per 90 minutes

West Ham: 3.85

Arsenal: 4.70

 

Just like their goals per shot ratio isn't fantastic, Arsenal's shots on target rate isn't the best.

Arsenal are still ahead here, and almost by a whole shot on target per 90 minutes more than West Ham. The problem is, they aren't more accurate. Their shots on target percentage is 30.8%, which has them 14th in the league for that stat.

West Ham aren't that much better, though. They only rank two places higher in 12th with a percentage of 31.7%. But the point here is that it is still better than Arsenal.

 

Goals conceded per 90 minutes

West Ham: 1.29

Arsenal: 1.21

 

Both these teams rank within the top 10 for least goals conceded this season in the league, with Arsenal taking the sixth spot with 40 goals conceded, and West Ham in ninth with 44 goals conceded.

So only a four-goal difference in it between these two, but let's not forget, though, the Gunners have had much fresher legs than West Ham for most parts of the season, with the Hammers also competing in the Europa League, a competition which they have been doing tremendously in and should look to make the most of, while Arsenal have had no European football this year.

Bare in mind for this game as well that West Ham played on Thursday in their Europa League Semi-final first leg against Frankfurt.

 

Penalties 

West Ham: 3/5

Arsenal: 4/7

 

Neither side can boast a very solid penalty conversion rate, with West Ham having a 60% conversion rate, while Arsenal's is at 65%.

A slight win for Arsenal, but let's consider the fact that they have missed three to West Ham's two misses. 

 

Corners per game

West Ham: 5.38

Arsenal: 5.18

 

Despite taking a fair amount more shots and having a slight advantage for shots on target, Arsenal are actually beaten by West Ham for more corners per game.

Again, both are in the top 10 for most corners this season; West Ham are in sixth with 183, while Arsenal are in ninth with 171.

For goals from set pieces, it is quite close. West Ham have scored 13, Arsenal have scored 11.

 

Cards

West Ham: 45 Y, 3 R

Arsenal: 55 Y, 3 R

 

In terms of yellow cards, both sides are fairly disciplined. West Ham are third in the league for least amount of yellow cards this season, while Arsenal are in seventh. The Hammers average 1.32 yellows per game, Arsenal average 1.66.

But its a different story for red cards. Funnily enough, these two shares second place for most red cards this season and are the only two teams on three cards this season. They're only beaten by Everton, who are on four, but that shouldn't take away from the fact that they both are pretty poorly disciplined for red cards.

West Ham's last red card came in there previous Premier League match against Chelsea, where Craig Dawson received a straight red in the 86th minute before Chelsea went on to score the winner in injury time. That was the only card, yellow or red, for the team that game.

Arsenal's last red card came in a winning effort against Wolves in matchweek 24, which was 12 games ago. Martinelli was the player sent off then in the 69th minute, but the Gunners nicely held on to their already 1-0 lead to win the game.