Gary Neville ‘happy’ as Martinez tips West Ham to beat Liverpool

Gary Neville was ‘happy’ to go along with Roberto Martinez’s prediction for Liverpool’s fixture against West Ham at Anfield on Saturday.

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The Reds go in search of a third consecutive Premier League victory when they play host to Nuno Espirito Santo’s team at the weekend, and a win would take the champions level on points with fourth-placed Manchester United overnight.

A home fixture against a side in the relegation zone makes LFC the clear favourites on paper, but the Irons come to Merseyside on an improved run of form which has seen them take 11 points from the last 18 available in the top flight.

Martinez backing West Ham to win at Anfield

Martinez appeared as a guest on the latest episode of Stick to Football, and he explained why he thinks West Ham could cause an upset against Liverpool despite the teams’ respective league positions.

The former Everton manager said: “What I think is, the manager of West Ham knows how to win at Anfield, and Liverpool struggle against teams who are very defensive. I fancy West Ham to win 1-0. I don’t think there’ll be many goals.”

A buoyant Neville then chimed in: “Wow! I could buy into that all day long. I’m happy with that.”

Is there a case to be made for West Ham on Saturday?

Martinez is set to raise quite a few eyebrows by predicting West Ham to win on Saturday, but is there logic to his explanation for an away victory?

Nuno does have previous for upsetting Slot, having won at Anfield and held Liverpool to a draw at the City Ground as Nottingham Forest manager last season, and the Reds boss has frequently bemoaned coming up against the kind of low block that he can expect to face at the weekend.

The Irons also make the trip to Merseyside on a resurgent run of form which has greatly boosted their chances of avoiding relegation, and they can go to L4 with something of a ‘free hit’ as the burden of expectation will be on the champions to take all three points.

However, the recent history of this fixture – and Nuno’s overall record against LFC – would point firmly towards a home win.

West Ham have a terrible record at Anfield (and so does Nuno)

West Ham have been beaten in each of their last 10 visits to Anfield since a 2-2 draw in December 2016 and have only four away wins over Liverpool from 75 attempts (lfchistory.net), so historically this has been a rather sobering fixture for the east Londoners.

Also, while Nuno twice claimed a result against Slot last season, he’s lost eight of his 11 previous meetings against the Reds, including all three in L4 until Forest came and did a number on us approximately a year-and-a-half ago.

Two of the current bottom four in the Premier League have taken points off LFC at Anfield this term, so we can’t say we haven’t been forewarned about the potential banana skin the Irons could pose.

However, Liverpool should have the requisite quality to come through a difficult test with victory, especially if Florian Wirtz is cleared to play after he missed our win at Forest last weekend.