West Ham v Everton: Back Ward-Prowse to inspire Hammers

• Hammers strong at home

• Everton wounded after derby loss

• Ward-Prowse can take advantage of Everton weakness

• Check out 90 Minute Payout feature

West Ham v Everton
Sunday 29 October, 13:00
Live on Sky Sports Premier League

Gloomy week for Hammers

It's been a tough few days for David Moyes and West Ham. First they were shredded in a 4-1 defeat at Aston Villa in the Premier League - apart from a spell in the second half at 2-1 down they were totally outplayed - and then they went down 2-1 at Olympiakos in the Europa League. The Greek champions were excellent in the opening exchanges, and were 2-0 up by half time.

That said, it's still been a strong start to the season for the Hammers. They are top of their UEL group, level on points with Freiburg, and going into that Villa game they had made their best start to a Premier League season since 1999.

There have also been important developments off the field. Europa Conference League final hero Jarrod Bowen has signed a new seven-year deal at the London Stadium, Lucas Paqueta stayed despite strong interest from Manchester City, and the signings of sought-after players like James Ward-Prowse and Mohammed Kudus have shown early promise.

After two punishing road trips, West Ham will be glad to be back at base, and they have every reason to be confident. Our friends at Opta tell us that West Ham have won seven of their last 14 home games in the Premier League, and their only home defeats in that spell were against Newcastle, Liverpool and Manchester City.

That run includes victories on four of their last six on home soil in the league, and in all competitions it's nine wins from the last 14 in East London.

Left-back Emerson is suspended after picking up five yellow cards, and we can expect the likes of Kurt Zouma, Lucas Paqueta, Jarrod Bowen, Edson Alvarez and Michail Antonio to all return after they were rested in midweek.

Hard-luck stories won't keep Everton up

The narrative around Everton this season is that they have deserved far more than their points tally of seven. There's certainly some basis for that - the Toffees have remarkably generated a higher Expected Goals For figure than Manchester City, and according to understat.com, they should have double the number of points they have, which would have them a healthy 10th in the top flight.

They were certainly unfortunate to some extent in the Merseyside derby at Anfield. Having had Ashley Young rightly sent off for twice bringing down Luis Diaz, Everton should have reaped the benefit of Liverpool's Ibrahima Konaté being dismissed for a second bookable offence, but the card remained in referee Craig Pawson's pocket. It was 0-0 then, it was 2-0 by the end of the game.

Everton's away form certainly is concerning. They have won just two of their last 19 away games in the top flight, a whole season's worth of road matches. They have lost nine of them, and in those 19 matches they have scored just 18 goals. Five of those were in the same remarkable win at Brighton last term.

Veteran full-back Young is suspended after his dismissal, while Seamus Coleman is still missing because of injury. Star striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin is expected to be fit again, which will be an encouraging seventh league appearance of the season, although he will be keen to add to his modest tally of two goals.

Hammers to avoid defeat

Although they have had a recent wobble, I don't expect West Ham to lose this game, so I'll start my Bet Builder by backing West Ham/Draw. I'll add in Over 1.5 Goals (that has paid out in all nine of the Hammers' league games), and I'll also back summer signing Edson Alvarez to commit at least one foul (he has already racked up 14 in the Premier League).

That gives us a combined price of 1.9620/21.

Ward-Prowse worth backing

James Ward-Prowse has been excellent since arriving at the London Stadium, and he has already delivered two goals and three assists in eight Premier League games. He is excellent at dead-ball situations, and he seems nicely priced at 13/102.30 in the Betfair Sportsbook's Score or Assist market.

Everton have already leaked four set-piece goals in the league this season, and only Nottingham Forest have a worse record.