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Liverpool v West Ham
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Kick Off: Wednesday 25th September at 20:00
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Competition: EFL Cup
Liverpool get their EFL Cup campaign underway with a visit from West Ham, who dispatched Bournemouth 1-0 in the previous round to secure their place in the third round.
The Reds are the defending champions, having beaten Chelsea with Virgil van Dijk’s 118th-minute winner securing them a record 10th EFL Cup victory as they became the first club to reach double figures in this competition.
West Ham, meanwhile, have never won this competition, being beaten finalists twice, in 1966 and 1981. If they are to emulate those campaigns and make it to the latter stages, this will be perhaps the sternest test they will face. The Hammers have beaten Liverpool in a cup competition just once since 1988, an FA Cup fourth round triumph at Upton Park in 2016.
Liverpool v West Ham Best Bets
The goals line is extremely high for this game, without much to back to that up. The potential for rotation may make this game slightly more open than would be otherwise expected, but that is likely to cut both ways, with less effective defensive units more or less balanced out by going up against less effective attackers. There is little reason to believe that a second-string Liverpool will run away with this one by a huge scoreline, whilst even West Ham’s first-teamers have shown very little in an attacking sense this season.
Of the 12 games these two sides have played so far this season, none have seen five or more goals, so a 3-2, 4-1 or 5-0 scoreline looks improbable at best. West Ham have scored twice or more only once this season, and though they have conceded three times twice, they have not allowed more than that. They have also held their opponents to one or fewer goals in three of their six games so far. Liverpool have seen just one game with four total goals, that being their 3-1 win over AC Milan in the Champions League.
The hosts are still heavily favoured to win this game, despite the expected rotation, and with West Ham’s struggles in recent weeks it is easy to see why. The Hammers have failed to generate over 1.0 xG in any of their last three league games, conceding 3.0, 1.5 and 2.2 xGA to Man City, Fulham and Chelsea respectively. Bearing all of this in mind, Liverpool to win & under 4.5 goals looks to be available at a fantastic price here.
We also like the look of Connor Bradley as an outside pick for a shot on target here. The Liverpool right-back has featured off the bench in four of Liverpool’s five league games this season, but did not come on at the weekend, suggesting a full 90 is likely here. He had a shot on target and two shots total in 14 minutes off the bench against Ipswich earlier in the season. Bradley also had two shots on target when playing for Northern Ireland against Bulgaria in the international break.
Last season, an injury to Trent Alexander-Arnold saw Bradley pick up a fair few starts for Liverpool, and he showcased his attacking threat often when given the chance to start the game. The 21-year-old notched a shot on target in each of his first four starts in the Premier League, and took a shot in eight of his 10 league starts in 2023/24.
Averaging 1.11 shots on target per 90 in the Premier League so far this season, backing Connor Bradley to have 1+ shots on target here at odds-against looks a very tempting outsider pick here.
📂 Liverpool v West Ham Cheat Sheet
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📊 Liverpool Form and Stats
Liverpool may have had a slight stumble in losing 1-0 to Nottingham Forest two weekends ago, but they have bounced back from that superbly, with two wins in two, six goals scored and just one conceded since then. Arne Slot’s start has not quite been perfect, but the Forest loss aside, it could not have gone much better.
The Reds comfortably beat AC Milan and Bournemouth last week to ensure that the surprise home loss at the hands of Nuno’s Forest was nothing more than a blip. Prior to the international break they were also in superb form, picking up three wins with three clean sheets to open the season with a perfect 100% record through their first three games.
The players have seemed to buy into Slot’s philosophy straight away, with any hint of a hangover from Klopp’s departure being undetectable in their play and in their comments to the media. It is not known yet how seriously the Dutchman will choose to take the cup competitions in Englan, but his previous record suggests he intends to go as far as he can with his new club. Under Slot, Feyenoord made it to the Conference League final in 2022, a Dutch Cup final in 2023, and then went one better in 2024, securing the Dutch Cup with a 1-0 with over NEC Nijmegen in the final.
📊 West Ham Form and Stats
Whereas the managerial transition at Liverpool has appeared almost seamless, the one going on at West Ham has been anything but. After a general acceptance that it was time to move on from David Moyes, a poor start under new manager Julen Lopetegui has seen some sections of the fanbase questioning whether it was the right move to let Moyes go for a second time.
The Hammers have won just one of their opening five league games, and two of their six games in all competitions. Both of these came in August, as West Ham beat Crystal Palace 2-0 on the road in the league and then squeezed past Bournemouth with a narrow 1-0 win in the last round of this competition.
Since then, they have picked up just a single point in the Premier League, losing 3-1 at home to Man City, picking up a very undeserved point away to Fulham, before a humiliating 3-0 home loss to Chelsea, who never looked like they got out of third gear.
Lopetegui’s sides are known for being very defensive-oriented, but the Hammers have conceded over 2.0 xGA in three of their five league games so far, and following their opening weekend loss to Aston Villa, have not generated over 1.4 xG in any of their four league games since. They have now failed to generate over 0.9 xG in any of their last three league games.
The atmosphere around the team is not good right now, and they will be desperate to get a win and try to change the narrative. Unfortunately for them, a trip to Anfield is far from the game they would have chosen to try and secure that win.
⚔️ Liverpool v West Ham Head-to-Head
These two clubs firet met in 1901, and overall Liverpool have been heavily dominant in this fixture, notching 83 wins to West Ham’s 29. The Reds dominance is far from just historical too, having lost only one of their last 17 meetings with West Ham, a 3-2 loss in the Premier League back in 2021.
Those other 16 games since West Ham’s previous win over Liverpool, a 2-1 FA Cup fourth round win way back in 2016, saw the Reds win 13, with the other three all being drawn. Those three draw do, however, include their most recent clash, a 2-2 draw at the London Stadium in April of this year.
The hosts have now won eight straight games against West Ham at Anfield, one of which was an EFL Cup game and the other seven were league fixtures. Liverpool are unbeaten in 10 games at Anfield against West Ham, last losing to the Hammers on their own patch in August 2015, a 3-0 loss that came just over a month before Brendan Rodgers was sacked.
These two sides actually met in this competition last season too, as Liverpool ended West Ham’s hopes of a first-ever EFL Cup triumph, thrashing the Hammers 5-1 at Anfield in the fifth round. Their all-time record in cup competitions across 16 meetings has seen Liverpool win nine, with West Ham only tasting victory three times.
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* We recommend waiting for confirmed team line-ups before placing any bets.
* All odds displayed correct at the time of publishing.
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